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Revitalizing Downtown Austin and the Issue of Recycling
By Kathryn | August 3, 2008
One of the major reasons that people are interested in the revitalization of downtown Austin is that this trend is going to make Austin a greener city. People are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of taking citywide actions to become more environmentally friendly. Encouraging people to live, work and play in the downtown area will reduce commute lengths and gas usage and will therefore increase the “greenness” of Austin. However, some say that being green in Austin is still more difficult than it should be and that the city should be making greater efforts to improve the ease of being green.
One example of this that has come up in the news recently is the fact that prices are being raised on garbage collection fees. The plan to raise the fees was initially intended to be a green plan; fees were going to be high for large trash cans but they were going to remain low for the smallest trash cans. If this had happened, it would have encouraged recycling in Austin because people would want to keep the amount of trash that they had low enough to fit in the small trash cans. However, this wasn’t the case. Instead, fees were raised on all sizes of trash cans. Many residents argue that this decreases the incentive to recycle and makes it less likely that Austin is going to be a city where people will recycle instead of throwing their stuff in the trash.
Recycling is just one example of what Austin can do to encourage green living in the city. It is likely that green actions taken by the city are going to be more welcome in the emerging downtown Austin area because of the fact that there is such an emphasis in this area on the “greenness” of downtown living. If an effort is made, this area could become a highly important area in terms of motivating the green movement in Austin and increasing the overall eco-friendliness of the city.
Topics: Downtown Austin Living |