Beppe Grillo's Blog

Rubbish: change is possible!

Children at 5 Star Woodstock
(03:48)

The most serious accusation that you can bring against the political scene, against the bureaucracy that springs from it, against the municipalised companies, and against the concession companies that are the direct fruit, is to be incapable of managing public goods, the reason why they are being paid. ‘Waste’ is an invention of the parties, an alibi for the construction of incinerators, an excuse to create rubbish tips, to make use of the army against the citizens. The parties are not adapted to run the country. They create emergencies to justify their own existence. At Cesena the citizens have demonstrated that it’s possible to recycle 91% of the so called ‘waste’. So-called in that ‘waste’ does not exist in nature, but there are secondary raw materials that can be sold. In two days, the participants at 5 Star Woodstock produced ‘waste’ equal to that of a city like Forlì. They recycled it almost entirely and they sold it with an income for the organisation of 2,000 euro. It’s possible to do it. The 5 Star MoVement can do it, any public administration can do it and if doesn’t manage it, it can go home.

“Thank you to the 50 men and women volunteers who transformed themselves into rubbish collectors to gather up bags, sacks, packets, putting their hands on every material and giving the participants advice. Thanks to the tens of thousands of people who in two days made their contribution, by separating the post-consumption materials (called ‘waste’) into the appropriate containers and by contributing in reducing them by drinking drinks ‘on tap’ or by bringing with them multi-use water bottles, pots and pans from home. 5 Star Woodstock Zero Waste is a reality. We beat every record for big events by demonstrating that “to wish is to be able”. In the Mondiali Antirazzisti di Casalecchio {World Antiracist event in Casalecchio} last July, 73% of the material was separated out (30 thousand participants in 5 days for 9,570 kg of waste produced of which 6960 was sent for recycling-composting). 5 Star Woodstock did better with 91%! An absolute record for any event held in Italy.
The numbers. 56.64 tons of ‘waste’ was produced. Considering that it was an outside event plus a camp site, a daily production of 400 grammes a head (average figure for door to door production without industrial stuff) there was a production equal to about 141,625 people concentrated on the days of 25/26 September.
Results. Composting: in total, according to the data from Hera that carried out the transport of what was emptied from the bins of organic material and non-separated rubbish, ‘waste’ weighing between 40-45 tons was sent to the composting plant. For rubbish disposal there was 5.1 tons. Whereas, the figures supplied by Centro Riciclo Vedelago , talk about 10.54 tons of recyclable and transformable material collected by separating out the material.
Of these:
2,920 Kilo of cardboard, sent to the paper handlers (market price: 86 €/ton)
60 kilo of plastic (market price: 240 €/ton)

894 Kilo of aluminium /steel (average price 422 €/ton)
2,137 Kilo of PET ( 445 €/ton)
4,320 Kilo of glass (42 €/ton)
100 Kilo of wood (110 €/ton)
110 Kilo of “dry recyclable” material (160 €/ton).
The value of the material sent to Centro Riciclo Vedelago was about 2,000 euro.
Environmental/Energy Advantages . Recycling 4,320 Kilo of glass, has made it possible to save 5,184 Kilo of raw material for the production of new glass.
- If you think that to produce 1 Kilo of recycled aluminium 0.7 kWh is used instead of 14 kwh if produced using raw materials, there’s a saving of 11,890 Kwh.
-To produce a ton of paper from raw materials, 15 trees are cut down and 440,000 litres of water are used, 7600 kwh. If instead the paper is recycled: 0 trees, 1800 litres of water, 2700 kwh. 5 Star Woodstock has saved 43 trees and caused the saving of 1,270,780 litres of water, 14,210 Kwh.
- The production of PET was limited to 3.77% of the ‘waste’ but usually represents 10% of rubbish, that gave a saving of 6,000 Kilo of PET, whose production needs 105,000 litres of water and causes the emission into the atmosphere equal to 240 Kilo of hydrocarbons, 150 Kilo of sulphur oxides, 108 Kilo di carbon monoxide and 13,800 Kilo of carbon dioxide (CO2)." from Matteo Incerti-Raffaella Pirini, the people responsible for the project “Woodstock 5 Stelle-Rifiuti Zero” { 5 Star Woodstock Zero Refuse} project and Federica Cuppini, the person in charge of coordinating the “Woodstock 5 Stelle-Rifiuti Zero” teams.

Comments

I will repeat it forever:

“If you live in a sewer long enough you soon get used to the smell of shit and think its normal.”

Italians live in a social, economic and political sewer. They think that they all shit soap bubbles.

Posted by: Robert Morrion | October 7, 2010 10:47 AM

Last night on Ballaro', Minister of Tourism, Brambilla, scurried from speaker to speaker to correct their replies, talk over their answers and sometimes anticipating what she thought their thoughts were, even concluded their answers for them. She was a "one lady ministers show." But in the end she enlightened us, "the country may change, but our election promises won't."

Impressive! But what if a captain sailed his ship headlong into an iceberg and the captain ignored the danger and didn't steer away, what then? Se la vie? Italy is on the brink of economic default, the industrial base is "de-locating", one out of three young people is out of work, unemployment is at 9%, the school system is in complete chaos, half of the country is clamoring to separate, the other half is riddled by mafia gangs, parliament is riddled by criminals, trash-riots erupt nightly, the political system is corrupt to the core, racism is rampant, gay-bashing is fast becoming a national sport but not to worry, Ms. Brambilla's government is busy reforming the justice
system - Berlusconi needs it.

Posted by: Louis pacella | October 7, 2010 01:34 AM

Well done Beppe,
I am a farmer and an observer of nature and life.
Beppe has brought his views to everyone's attention but let me expand with my own interpretation of global matters.
Some countries, as he says, are already in a desperate state but soon there will be no way out for any country and a new way to live must be found before armegeddon.
A country can only mine its resources once and with recycling extending that useage a little more but soon the earths resources will be exhausted or too depleted to be economically viable.
If it isnt oil it might be copper or any other minerals used in vast quantities industrially to give us our comforts and essentials.
I forecast the financial, industrial, western world we know has maybe only a few decades at the most left but more likely less than 20 years after which we will have to live a life depleted of anything other than bare natural necessities and that will be an awesome task. Already people like Beppe are seeing the tip of the iceberg and soon a financial collapse will happen which will be terminal and even the wealth of the megga rich will become worthless in the blink of an eye.
Nonetheless this is something we must address now because without thought and planning the human race will self-destruct, "dog eat dog" that sort of thing. As a species we need to bond together globally, all races and religions sharing a precious and precarious new life and helping each other through this, it will be no laughing matter because we will all suffer huge losses in every way, but no it is not the end if we are clever.
Our young need help, our brains and experiences to help future generations survive, just as it should be, just something radically different but still have a life to live, just in a different manner, they will be the ones in it and to live under a new set of rules, not to be depressed or without hope but to see this as the biggest challenge for centuries if not ever for the human race and the saving of our planet which will be greatly relieved of the chemical and industrial pressures created by the last 300 years, so once again Mother Nature can bathe herself clean and continue comfortably until the next problem we create. Maybe one day we will learn?
No species on this planet can live outside of natures rules, we've tried it for 300 years and we have failed.
To those too ignorant to heed this warning, it is not a case of having to go backwards but one of where we just went too far forwards ! We had choices but we chose the wrong road to take, thats all.
It may have seemed a good idea at the time but we never thought broad enough of its effects and now look at just how much damage we have done to the long term survival of the human race and our beloved planet Earth.

John Hillson UK Farmer

Posted by: john hillson | October 6, 2010 08:01 PM