Looking for feedback about backyard burning
Hi, Inbox readers -
Lots of great comments about the debate over the new burn ban that takes effect today in Brian's post last week.
I'm doing a story about burning, what we're used to and what the ban will mean for North Country residents. I'm interested in talking with people who have/had burn barrels, or regularly burn/burned leaves in the fall.
Send me an e-mail to david-at-ncpr-dot-org and we'll get in touch!
Thanks!
posted by David Sommerstein @ 10/14/2009 03:16:00 PM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
A lot of north country residents will have to drive several miles to dsipose of trash.
Here's a solution: how bout the state abolishes the apa and uses the savings to set up trash pick up in communities that don't currently have it?
Another liberty gone. Soon it will be outdoor wood boilers and then wood stoves. I don't suppose the city dwellers will care, but there are a lot of people doing all they can to stretch a dollar and having to pay to get rid of your trash is another knife in the back.
Hi, my name is anon and I am a recovering backyard burner. It has been 15 years, and life is good. At a certain point, I realized that burning the inks, stray plastic wasn't good for air quality.
Bret, I was in the solid fuel industry for a number of years. A big difference between wood stoves and out door furnaces. Back in early 80's it was wood stove industry trade groups that advocated for stricter standards, catalytic converters and more thorough burning of gases and particulate--even though they also knew it would put dozens of manufacturers and dealers out of business. Why because it was the right thing to do environmentally? and they worked with the EPA. These outdoor furnaces are pollution disasters and should be closely regulated.
Liberty isn't about doing what we darn well please. It is about our ability to do the right thing on our own--so we don't need government telling us what to do.
It is about being a citizen and not just a consumer, and it is about doing our civic duty through voting and serving the community for the common good and not our own agenda.
Well said.
I have an outdoor boiler and am planning to replace it with a cleaner, more efficient wood gasifier.
I run it year 'round and cut all my oun wood. It's a lot of hernia-inducing wook.
I'm looking forward to cutting less wood and burning cleaner.
Mike, LF
I had a buddy with a backhoe dig a big hole. That will last me for years., and it's not visible. I figured it would cost me what one year of trash removal would, would cost a little less than two years of dump fees. that's not including the gas Id have to buy to get to the dump. How can we be so concerned about individual rights and yet be a dictatorship about smoke? Guarantee us old timers consume way less, and change the planet less than the younger bunch, who are so charged up about it all and fly all over creation, toss electronic gadgets all over, etc. Gimme a break
Anon and Mike, here's the problem- Read the comments in the Watertown, Syracuse or any of the major papers. Most of the people supporting this law mention getting rid of wood boilers and wood stoves. It's not going to stop here guys.
Liberty includes my being free to make a responsible choice, not because a law says I have to, but because I have the character to make the right choice. It seems to me the subjective phrase "right choice" is the problem here. If we were to do the "right" thing all forms of combustion would be banned, at least by some standards. And since the "right" choice is whatever the press says it is, it won't stop here, of that I'm certain.
In all seriousness NY is the least liberty friendly state in the country. Below is a link from a paper published by George Mason University that details the findings. This said, limiting the burning of waste (especially petrochemicals and the like) in barrels is a good thing for all (animals, plants, and etc.).
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if banning outdoor boilers is next. Hey, David don't you have one of these? I do and would be PISSED off if they're not grandfathered into future prohibitions.
JPM
http://www.mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/Mercatus/Publications/Freedom%20in%20the%2050%20States.pdf
It would be nice if us people who pay taxes and live outside of the village could have the town pick up stuff like Louisville/Massena does!
Nothing like that in rural Waddington/Lisbon. Why Not??
My place is clean,but I do know some people who live like pigs. The people who stuff their junk cars with garbage is another issue.
And the ones who sneak their garbage onto someone elses land should be persecuted to the highest level of the Law!
wake up not a 100 years ago everyone had too burn wood or coal ,,too keep warm ,,,burning papers is ok garbage is not
Common sense is dead.
Why not limit what people burn instead of banning it all together?
*gasp* What a brilliant idea, right?
Nope. Our gifted leaders have decided to paint everyone with the same brush to make it seem like anyone with a burn barrel burns their garbage in there.
Yes, I burn all my paper & cardboard in my barrel, or atleast used to. I made sure to do it right as to not hurt the environment & teach my kids that this was the responsible way of doing it. Now, they think daddy's a bad man for using a burn barrel.
Thanks NYS. If I could uproot my family, I would & high tail it out of this terrible state!
i'm ready for phase two of the recycling process. if you don't wan't me to throw away my plastic milk and water bottles in a landfill, or burn them, then stop producing them. garbage is not only the "end user's" problem.
plastics have their place in the world, but maybe they shouldn't be "everyplace". if it's against the "law" to use one wood boiler in my yard for heat and domestic hot water, how about if i had one "legal" wood stove in each of the eight rooms of my house? is that better? i agree with the poster who says "common sense is dead" ....i'll add "long live anarchy" then.
I hope that the poster who dug the hole in which to put his garbage relaizes that he, in all likelihood, could be prosecuted for mining without a permit.
"Anonymous said...
wake up not a 100 years ago everyone had too burn wood or coal ,,too keep warm ,,,burning papers is ok garbage is not
October 15, 2009 6:27 PM"
Oh yeah, this is the classic line from people who think heat, electricity and gasoline just drop from the Gov'ts backside during the daily BM. Who pays for all this? No one is providing free electric, gas or heating oil that I'm aware of. Just turn up the thermostat! Just pay a few dollars to have someone come haul all your trash away! So the same Gov't that tells us we need to be socially conscious and to help our neighbors is the same Gov't that puts another burden on our poor and elderly. That $40.00 a month to haul away the trash that used to be burned may be the difference between Grandma eating or getting her meds or taking care of the trash.
Pretty obvious to me the Democrat Government of NYS wants to starve old people!!!
(Hey, you bought it about the Republicans, why not this?)
What the hell is happening to our state,let alone our country?Banning burn barrels not only makes me very angry,but also makes me feel like I am being controlled by "the government" which I dont think should have the right to do most of the things that they are doing.#1 burn barrles verses vehicle exhaust....Have any of yu ever been behind the so called new cars with the New emissins? well I can tell you I would much rather smell burning paper.#2 middle class and low income folks can NOT afford to take a trip every week to the dump to rid their trash.the cost of gas going up all the time(another government doing),the wear and tear on the vehicles to get it there.and what about the older people who have no other resources for trash removal?we use to have waste stream pick ours up every week and we live in the country,but it got to expensive,so we started burning paper and card board,now my husband uses the newspapers to make paper bricks to use in wood stoves,out side cooking,etc....as for food trash,such as bread,and things of that nature,maybe you have a farmer friend or neighbor that can use it for the animals.what is next? telling us we need to recycle our own toilet paper? just as hunting is a part of the north country,so is burn barrels.If they ban this for long,then what? the NEED TO BAN THE smoke stacks on businesses,furnace fumes, come on GET REAL..government keep your noses out of our barrels
the burn barrel ban is stupid.I WOULD MUCH RATHER SMELL THAT ANY DAY as to smell the liquid manure that gets dumped on all sides of us.we cant sit out in the summer,we cant cook out,have a gathering all because of the crap that is being spread.that to me is more toxic than any burn barrel.if you dont think so,then you come where I live and smell it for awhile.I am disabled and need air all the time,but can not open my windows due to the rotten stinch of combined animal and human waste that is being dumped in our grounds.it might be 3 houses up that it is being done,but I KNOW that it travels,now whos to say that doesnt get in YOUR wells,?WAKE UP PEOPLE SMELL THE CRAP EVERY DAY AND YOU WILL SEE THAT THE SMELL OF BURNING PAPER ISNT SO BAD AFTER ALL....HEY!!! IDEA...WHY DONT WE ALL SAVE OUR CARDBOARD AND PAPERS AND GIVE THEM TO OUR GOVERNMENT,AFTER ALL THEY MAY BE ABLE TO HELP SOME ONE BUILD A HOME . RECYCLE?
The backyard burn ban will take away my precious freedom to pollute a common resource that we all depend on. I'm an American, I have the right to destroy any natural thing without asking permission. You can pry my burn barrel from my cold, dead hands!
Living upstate my entire life, burn barrels and recycle bins have ben part of our landscape forever. We , many of us, do burn our household wastes, not plastcis and recyclables, they go in the bin, out of economic and lack of service reasons. We have no garbage service and unless we want to pay rates thqat are beyond thought, will continue to burn our waste, even if it means constructing two stage burners that release little smoke and hide them in the many acres of woods that our property contains. Wow doesnt this sound like the revernue men and the stills of years past but now the commodity is garbage. Come on NY State, get a grip. You want to get a shot at controlling pollution, go after the business that are useing antiquated ir release systems that flush more pollutants intot he air in one day then a whole twon will in a month.
Second part, agricutural burnning is permitted. what, dont he field s and such have checmicals and residues that are more dangerous than me burning some leftover rice and beans , or how about the dead infested disesased carcasses of animals that have died release intot he air when burned ?
We are going toburn ,,,go on Mr Revenue/Burn BArrel police, lets see what happens...hahha
Thank God for the ban. I was getting SICK and TIRED of the moronic and cheap neighbors that think nothing of burning PVC pipe all summer long.
Mostly just sick. It's pretty bad when CHILDREN start getting migraines every time the neighbors start burning their garbage. Disgusting. Pay to get your garbage removed. With how little we pay in taxes, it's not that much to ask.
There are too many people that think their money is better spent on useless crap (an extra cell phone, a car stereo, a flat screen TV, high speed internet, etc) than something as basic as having garbage hauled from their homes.
It's not the government's responsibility to take care of it. You make the mess, you pay for it. Maybe you'll learn to be more responsible with the things you buy. Less packaging/learn to compost/recycle etc.
The second that one of the smaller villages around here offers removal services for free is the second that they go bankrupt from everyone's skeezy friends/kids/etc dropping their weekly garbage off to avoid paying a garbage bill so they can afford crap that they don't need.
Most people I know with wood stoves would be happy to take any garbage that is a wood/paper product. The people that are really complaining are the ones that are dead-set on burning plastic and oil.
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