by Jon Cox
Supermarkets in Italy are very different from supermarkets in America. My supermercato in Italy would fit inside of one of the main aisles of Walmart. I would go every day, and buy, at most, 5 things. It was located down three flights of steps and across the street from where I lived. And at the end of every transaction, the son of the elderly couple who ran it would ask me the same question: “borsa?” And every day, my response was the same: “no.”
“Borsa” is Italian for “bag,” and the reason why they ask you is because the bags aren’t free. Usually they cost €0.05. They were almost always unnecessary because my carton of blood orange juice, bottle of chianti, box of penne, jar of sauce, and can of Fanta (my splurge—European Fanta is to die for) would always fit in my messenger bag, and, even if I didn’t have it on me, would balance in my arms for the one minute walk back upstairs.
Beginning January 1st of this year, Seattle enacted a bag fee of 20¢ per bag. They also banned styrofoam take-out products. Los Angeles is banning all plastic bags in 2010, and charging 25¢ for paper ones. These approaches are slightly different from in Italy—there the bags are a luxury, here they’re a taxed commodity—but they both have the same net goal of reducing the amount of bags that get used and wasted. I’d argue that, in Seattle’s case, it’s even more beneficial, as it is a tax and not a store charge—the stores gain nothing by selling the bags, so they’re inclined to convince you to not use bags, you don’t want to use the bags, because they’re a financial waste, and, when you do use the bags, the money goes to the city, who hopefully will use it for enhancing their recycling programs.
Such a program could be enacted in Fayetteville, though I’m sure it would cause ire. I would support it. Hopefully the city council would, too. Seattle and Los Angeles are much bigger cities than Fayetteville, and they’ve enacted these regulations without fear of being voted out. I hope that Fayetteville can, too.
by Jon Cox
I just had an idea. What about creating a coalition of restaurants that will “honor your cup”—you bring in your favorite cup (or maybe tupperware, for take out), and that restaurant will agree to serve you in that.
The biggest problem I can think of is health code. I could see this being a violation.
Maybe restaurants could rent out tupperware—you can choose normal take out boxes, or pay a deposit and take home some tupperware that has the restaurant’s name written on it. If you keep the tupperware, they get the deposit. Otherwise, you can bring it back in the next time you go to the restaurant and get a credit for your meal that is the same cost as the deposit.
Or maybe it could be centralized, restaurants could check out tupperware and receive credits for returning them, that way you could take home tupperware from restaurant a and return it to restaurant b, who could trade it back to the central tupperware check to get their deposit back. There’d have to be some loss in the system, though.
by Jon Cox
Last night, after the preview of MacHomer, a friend and I walked to Kosmos for a late dinner. Operating on the promise I received earlier in the day on free lunch today, I used the last of the money in my wallet to make my stomach very happy—I purchased a Kosmos gyro, with fries and a drink. Those Kosmos fries, man. They deserve all the acclaim they get.
Anyway, the girl behind the counter hands me a cup. A styrofoam cup. First disappointment of the night. Then I go to fill up my cup. Pepsi. Second disappointment. No lemons to make my Pepsi palatable. Third disappointment. I did enjoy my gyro.
And then I realized something. I’ve often been disappointed with local business that use styrofoam. But I never really did anything about it. But in the past two days I’d been to three restaurants that used styrofoam cups—Kosmos, Jammin’ Java, and Baba Boudan’s. It’s weird, because all three places are visited largely by what I would consider the hippie crowd.
It’s not just styrofoam, though. I hate unnecessary receipts. A lot of places ask you if you want one, but the library doesn’t. And what about all of those rubber bands they hand out? It’s nice that Arsaga’s gives you free water, but usually its only a plastic cup. I like glass cups there, too, because I usually don’t have a water to go. The WAC was asking us to re-use our programs, citing how it is a green activity (although one that probably also saves them money), but at the preview of MacHomer, they were handing out ‘gift bags’ filled with slips of paper. They were in plastic bags. They could have just as easily been in paper envelopes that will biodegrade.
I think that we Fayettevillians should take some action on this. If you don’t know what it is, you should definitely learn up on the
dollar vote, as that’s an important concept. Basically, if you think a business sucks but it’s somehow still in operation, it’s because other people don’t, and they vote for the business with their dollar. Voting against a business is effectively a boycott.
Now I’m not suggesting that Fayetteville should boycott all of our favorite locally-owned places (what an awful idea). But if enough consumers were to ask en masse for change, it’d probably be a lot more effective than a few customers complaining. And I’ll admit that I haven’t talked to a single business owner about this, because I don’t know how much good only my comment will do. Lets all band together for this. Would anybody else be willing to help me organize this group?
by Jon Cox
Last Tuesday, largely because of a tweet by Alderman Petty, I went to the Fayetteville City Council meeting to voice my favor for the social media resolution. It had previously been tabled; I didn’t see what the big deal was about. During the public input, a few elderly citizens expressed discomfort at the idea. One woman said that, while at first glance it seemed inclusive, it was one of the “most deeply exclusive” measures that the city could adopt, remarking that approximately 1/4th of the city was under the poverty line and very likely could not afford luxuries such as a computer or internet. Furthermore, she dismissed the possibility of them using the computers at the library by claiming that there would be a rush to the free internet, effectively overwhelming the system.
My retort was plain and simple, largely because I had neither the time nor faculty to research what I wanted to say. What I did say is that, while such technologies are expensive, they are in fact provided for free. A free, if even time-limited, technology is inherently, even infinitely, more free than the city’s current method of using the NWA Times to communicate decisions to the population. I readily owned up to not subscribing to a paper.
Here’s what I would have said, had I been capable of doing the research:
First off, Fayetteville’s population (during the special census of 2006) is 67,158. However, it is ridiculous to assume that all 67,158 of Fayetteville’s residents are politically engaged and particularly care about politics. I think a good number to follow would be the amount of people who voted in the 2008 mayoral runoff election. Why the runoff? They’re drawn in solely for local reasons, and not to cast their vote for president.
According to this post on NWAnews.com, the mayoral runoff had Jordan defeating Coody with 5,796 votes over 4,319. 5,796 and 4,319 equal 10,115, or 15% of the 2006 population. Assuming that the 10,115 voters represent an even cross-section of Fayetteville, we can estimate the number of impoverished citizens who are also locally politically engaged to be 2,528.75 (using the detractor’s own standard of Fayetteville’s poverty).
This library report (pdf link; curiously enough when I first tried to access faylib.org, I was prompted to take a survey on how important having the internet in the public library was to me) from the opening of the Blair Library—almost 5 years ago, and almost certainly outdated—says that the library has 125 “computer workstations.” The library is open for 64 hours a week; 11 on Monday-Thursday, 8 on Friday and Saturday, and 4 on Sundays. According to the library’s computer use policy, “There is a two-hour time limit for the total amount of computer access per day.” Assuming that there is, in fact, the “overwhelming rush” described by the lady at the city council meeting and that the library computers therefore are in full usage 100% of the time, that means that an 11-hour day can see 750 individual users (with the last 125 only getting 1 hour of access), an 8-hour day can see 500 individual users, and a 4-hour day can see 250 individual users. That means that, in any given week, and assuming that each person uses a computer for the full two hours, the library is capable of handling 4250 computer users per week. And while the two-hour policy applies only per day, meaning that theoretically the same 750 people could occupy the library computers 100% of the time, it is highly unlikely. As is, the library presents more than enough opportunities for all 2528.75 impoverished-and-politically-active citizens to access the internet at least once a week.
More statistical fun:
I once saw in an ad on Razorback Transit that 7 in 10 students live off-campus. Given the U of A enrollment of 19,194, this implies that 13,435.8 U of A students do not live on campus. Now, not all of them necessarily live in Fayetteville. Let’s assume that three-fourths of them do. That leaves us with 10,076.85. If we then apply the poverty line, we get 2,519.2125 impoverished college students living within the city. If we then apply the politically active number (15%, achieved by using the results of the mayoral election), we end up with 377.881875. Those 378 politically engaged and impoverished students have free internet at the university, and would not need to use it at the public library. This leaves just 2,150.75 people who would theoretically rely on the library for internet. That’s just slightly more than half of the 4,250 users the library is capable of handling a week, meaning that, theoretically, the non-university impoverished and politically engaged citizens could have 4 hours of free internet access a week at the public library.
4 hours of free internet access a week is hardly crippling.
But people usually go in with their minds made up and work the facts to support them. After all, I just did.
