Waste reduction?

The goals of the governments of Toronto, Ontario, and other municipalities to reduce the amount of garbage heading to landfills is apparently working, as many towns and cities are reporting reductions of 20 - 30% or more in the amount of garbage heading into landfills. On its surface this sounds like a success. How is this being achieved?

Possibilities:

1) People are actually buying less stuff.
ha - ha.

2) More Recycling - people are recycling more stuff - so that there is less going to landfill.
Lets look at this example: Barrie Ontario: According to a C.D Howe paper from 2005, Barrie enjoyed a 39% reduction in waste sent to landfill, with a 20 percent increase in recycling when they implemented a two bag limit. Sounds good - right? Instead of percentages, look at the actual amounts in kilograms this represents. Using numbers from the same C.D. Howe paper, the amount of garbage per household went from 1 tonne to about 610kg, so 390kg less. The increase in recycling, though, amounts to only about 50kg or less. Where did the 340kg per household savings come from? Put another way - 340kg of waste per household just disappeared. Maybe aliens are taking it. - OK Some of it is a result of less leaves and grass clippings making it into the garbage, but that effect is only another 100kg at the most.

So where is it going?
Ravines, ditches, holes in construction sites, semi-legal farm burning operations, etc., etc. In other words generally spread out like a fine spray all over our province. Kinda reminds one of the 50's all over again. What we are creating here is a mess that our kids will have to laboriously pick up piece by piece.

That is how politicians run the environment.


How would I handle it?
Easy - ok that is sort of a joke - take the burden of paying for landfill and recycling programs out of the hands of the tax payer, and let industry and retail pay for the entire bill. Also make it illegal to charge for dumping in Ontario. We need the garbage to be in landfills. That is most important thing. I think that if people have to pay to throw everything out that they buy up front, then a real reduction in packaging and 'junk' consumer goods will result. You can't lock the dumpsters.
The real way to reduce waste is to actually generate tax revenue in addition to the amount that it costs to collect and dump. This means a shift to taxing the pollution instead of the current system of taxing people for working and owning a house. A carbon tax is another great way to reduce pollution and shift the tax burden to those who spend furiously on energy and consumer goods. If you tax something enough, it will go away.

With taxes like this, the quality of consumer goods will go up, the air will be cleaner and we will all be happier. Really.

--Tom Andersen

ref: http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_213.pdf

North of Target

In our business, we are often
asked, “What is the biggest
mistake salespeople make?” Of
course, we tend to term them
“opportunity areas” rather than
“mistakes” but whatever you want
to call them, the most common is
the area of questioning. The
second area that goes hand-in-
hand with number one would bthe seeming inability of typical
sales professionals to quit talking
and listen after they’ve asked great
questions!
The average salesperson is
high in the “D & I” of the DiSC
personality assessment, which
means that they are “dominant”
and “influential” . . . they like to control their environment and
generally, they love to talk (to learn more about the
DiSC profile, send us an e-mail for a sample). While
these are critical personality traits for a sales
professional to possess, they can also be their
Achilles heel. In a meeting with the prospect, they
think that selling is best done by being the one who
talks the most. Their best definition of
communication is “taking turns talking”!
The shortest course on selling is “ask questions
and shut up”. Good use of open ended, closed and
probing questions allows you to accurately determine
your prospect’s priorities, challenges and needs.
How can you truly provide a solution, which is an
overused word in sales these days, without knowing
precisely what the problems are and where the
opportunities are? You should never go into a sales
presentation without a list of well thought out
questions. At Northbound, we’re hesitant to even
use the term “presentation” as it implies that the
salesperson is “presenting” while the prospect
carefully listens while it should be just the opposite.
Our partners in e-learning solutions, CRK
Interactive, recommend in a Customer Focused Sales
Interview, that the prospect should be talking over
two-thirds of the time. Of course, there is much
more to learn about performing this process
properly. Northbound Learning’s Customer-Centric
SellingTM program includes a solid skills building
segment in this area. For more information, visit
http://www.northboundlearning.com/programs.html.
To experience a free e-learning demonstration in this
area from our partners, click or visit http://
www.crkinteractive.com/store-product.asp?
Category_ID=22&Product_ID=41
- Michael Caron

Wind Power - Environmental disaster.

I am a 43 year old physics PhD turned software engineer father of 3 who prides himself on energy efficiency.
I definitely 'think green'. Geothermal heating and cooling, better building codes, compact fluorescent bulbs, 4 cyl. cars, programmable thermostats - all examples of things Canadians could do better to save energy. Far from perfect, though, like anyone.

The only green part of wind power is all the money that is flowing into the pockets of large multinational corporations.
I know that the public has no real idea of how much money these wind turbines are costing us taxpayers. If the real truth about this matter was to be made public, I think it would be a big news item.

I will show you some articles, but if you know the very basics of investment it it easy to figure out how many millions and as it turns out billions of dollars we taxpayers are spending on wind power in Canada.

First, here is a little blurb that I wrote:

Would You Own a Windmill?

Cost $3 million. Expected return on investment ~ about 15 - 25 % sounds
good for a large corporation. So that means that a wind turbine just
has to clear about $500,000 per year to make money. Easy. After all
wind is free.

1.5 MW turbines stand 40 stories tall, but on average you can expect
to only get about 20% or so use out of them - the rest of the time
the wind is not blowing, or they are down for maintenance. They run
365 days per year, 24 hours per day * 20% of the time, so 1752 hours
per year. Electricity costs 10 cents per kwh at home, but 1/2 of that
is for transmission. The other 5 cents is for the power. 5 cents is
the retail price. You will only get 2 to 3 cents, as you own a source
of electricity that can't be turned on as demand requires. Say 2.5 cents. In
total your $3 million investment makes 1.5MW*365*24*20%*0.025 = $66
thousand per year. Wow. That is not much money. But you still have to
maintain the turbine. Good luck doing that for $50 thousand a year,
after lightning, wind and sun do their damage.
Why, then all the turbines going up in Ontario? The answer is
government money - $400 000+ of it per turbine per year. So now you
are happy. You get to charge 11 cents per kwh, get cheques, depreciation
allowances, tax breaks, and more. It won't be easy. You will have to spend
many hours at Queen's Park. Flights to Ottawa. But if your company is
named 'Brascan' you might just succeed.


References

Energy Probe:
http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/articles/EPreviewofwindpowerresults.pdf

Financial Post article by Robert M. MacIntosh
(Mr. MacIntosh is past president of the Canadian Bankers Association)
http://www.bhcc.ca/financial_post_article.htm

The kinds of things that governments are batting about with regard to wind:
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/index.cfm?fuseaction=archives.news2&back=yes&news_id=16&backgrounder_id=21
• A 10-year corporate income tax holiday for new electricity generation from clean, alternative and renewable energy sources, including natural gas, hydro-electric, solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen fuel cell and co-generation. The corporate income tax holiday would be available once the project has been completed and the corporation has begun selling the new electricity supply.
• A 10-year property tax holiday for newly created assets that generate electricity from clean, alternative or renewable sources of energy, with compensation to municipalities for lost property tax revenues. The tax exemption would begin on the date that the eligible facility commences generation of electricity.
• A 100-per-cent corporate income tax write-off in the year of acquisition for the cost of newly acquired assets used to generate electricity from clean, alternative or renewable sources, to be incorporated in a planned regulation. The write-off would be available for corporations that purchase eligible assets after November 25, 2002, and before January 1, 2008.
• A capital tax exemption for newly acquired assets used to generate electricity from clean, alternative or renewable sources. Corporations that purchase eligible assets after November 25, 2002, and before January 1, 2008, would qualify.
• A full retail sales tax rebate for building materials purchased and incorporated into clean, alternative or renewable electricity generation facilities. The rebate would be in effect for purchases of building materials made after November 25, 2002, and prior to January 1, 2008.
• Some of the tax incentives above would help support the Beck Tunnel Project in Niagara Falls.

Q&A about Standard Offer Contracts (comic relief)
http://www.wind-works.org/FeedLaws/Canada/Q&AonStandardOfferContracts.html
Reality: The Standard Offer contract was developed for small 10 MW and under programs. So Florida Light and Power is applying for something like 50 or more 10 MW contracts in Ontario.

Local opposition to Wind Turbines in Ontario:
http://www.bhcc.ca
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2006/11/27/puff-of-opposition-could-blow-ontarios-energy-schedule-down/
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=1393e10e-2e85-468f-86ef-a581e527060d&k=92678

Land leases for wind
There is a gold rush on in Ontario right now for people who can talk farmers into signing on. These contracts are resold to the highest bidder, and all sorts of tactics are used to get them to sign on. Basically, door to door salesmen get farmers to sign dubiously worded 50 year wind leases on their land. Then large companies announce their intention to develop wind power in an area, then the door to door salesmen sell the contracts to the big companies for lots of instant profit.
http://www.ofa.on.ca/policyissues/issues/Wind%20Power%20Lease%20Suggestions.pdf

Windaction
http://www.windaction.org/

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