Recycling and Composting: Making a Molehill Out of a Mountain

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Tammemagi
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Soft Drink ◽  
New Products ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Television ◽  
Integrated Waste Management ◽  
Metal Aluminum ◽  
P Recycling ◽  
Voluntary Basis

Recycling, which includes composting, is the current rage. Almost every community in North America has established some kind of recycling program in the past few years. This chapter focuses on the science and technologies that are involved in recycling programs and explores what is needed to make these programs successful. This section describes the part of recycling that is associated with blue-box or streetside programs. It includes paper, cardboard, metal, aluminum, and plastics; composting is described in the next section. A successful waste recycling program relies on more than a systematic application of equipment and other resources. It also depends very significantly on attitude. It is vital that everyone participate. To achieve a meaningful level of participation, some degree of legislative guidance may be necessary. In fact, studies have shown that mandatory recycling programs are much more effective than those run on a voluntary basis (Platt et al., 1991). Legislation or bylaws can also be used to • stipulate that soft-drink, beer, wine, and other bottles be Reused • require the use of recycled material in manufacturing new products • avoid excessive packaging • reduce tipping fees for recyclable or compostable materials brought to designated drop-off sites • set higher tipping fees for waste from which recyclables have not been removed • ban the landfilling of certain substances, such as yard wastes Public education is an indispensable part of an integrated waste management system. First, the public must be informed of the details that involve them: what days pickups are made, how to obtain recycle containers, what materials can be recycled, how they are to be sorted, and so on. This information can be disseminated by flyers, newsletters, ads in the local paper, features on local television channels, and telephone hot lines. Second, an ethic of conservation should be instilled so that people will want to participate in three Rs programs. Methods of achieving this objective include videos and slide shows at schools, posters, buttons, and awards to businesses and groups that make outstanding contributions to recycling.

Performing the ‘lifeworld’ in public education campaigns

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle M. Lazar
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Dual Processes ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Television ◽  
The Media ◽  
Education Campaigns ◽  
Real Person

In Singapore, top down public education campaigns have long been a mode of governance by which the conduct of citizens is constantly regulated. This article examines how in two fairly recent campaigns, a new approach to campaign communication is used that involves media interdiscursivity, viz., the mixing of discourses and genres in which the media constitute a significant element. The present approach involves the appropriation of a popular local television character, ‘Phua Chu Kang’, in order to address the public through educational rap music videos. Media interdiscursivity is based on an attempt to engage the public via a discourse of the ‘lifeworld’. The present article analyzes the ‘lifeworld’ discourse in terms of a combination of two processes, ‘informalization’ (the use of informal and conversational modes of address) and ‘communitization’ (the semiotic construction of a community of people). The dual processes are examined and discussed in relation to the choice of Phua Chu Kang as an ‘ordinary’ and almost ‘real’ person, including his informal register and speech style; his use of Singlish; and his construction of ‘community.’ The presence of Singlish, in particular, is interesting because (despite the official disdain for the language) it is included as part of PCK’s public performance of the lifeworld. The article concludes by considering this form of media interdiscursivity as the government’s shrewd way of achieving its social governance goals.

Global E-Waste Management and Second-Hand Consumption in the Third World: Substandard Context and Tokunbo Phenomenon in Nigeria

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
New Products ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Environmental Standards ◽  
The West ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
The Public ◽  
Standards And Regulations ◽  
The Third World ◽  
National Environmental

The world is technologically advancing, but the management of resultant waste, commonly known as e-waste, is also becoming very challenging. Of major concern is the incessant flow of this waste into the developing world where they assume secondhand value in spite of the associated environmental threats. This study adopts the qualitative approach to examine this phenomenon in Nigeria. The study reveals that aside from being cheaper than the new products, second-hand goods are usually preferred to the new products due to the substandard nature of most new electronics largely imported from Asia (especially China). The tag of Tokunbo or ‘imported from the West’ associated with second-hand goods imported from developed countries makes them more preferable to the public relative to new electronics imported from China, disparagingly termed Chinco. Yet both the second-hand electronics that are socially appreciated as Tokunbo and the substandard new electronics imported into Nigeria together render the country a huge recipient of goods that soon collapse and swell the e-waste heap in the country. This situation may be mitigated through strengthening the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, and also by sensitizing Nigerians on the dangers inherent in e-wastes.

Provincial Governance of Education—The Western Cape Experience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Robert ◽  
Brian Levy
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Political Party ◽  
School Level ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Education Department ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Public Education System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Bureaucracy

The focus of this chapter is the management and governance of education at provincial level—specifically on efforts to introduce performance management into education by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), and their impact. Post-1994 the WCED inherited a bureaucracy that was well placed to manage the province’s large public education system. Subsequently, irrespective of which political party has been in power, the WCED consistently has sought to implement performance management. This chapter explores to what extent determined, top-down efforts, led by the public sector, can improve dismal educational performance. It concludes that the WCED is a relatively well-run public bureaucracy. However, efforts to strengthen the operation of the WCED’s bureaucracy have not translated into systematic improvements in schools in poorer areas. One possible implication is that efforts to strengthen hierarchy might usefully be complemented with additional effort to support more horizontal, peer-to-peer governance at the school level.

New Folk Music as Attempted Repatriation in Romania

2018 ◽  
pp. 436-452
Author(s):  
Maurice Mengel
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
New Products ◽  
New Product ◽  
The State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
New Form

This chapter looks at cultural policy toward folk music (muzică populară) in socialist Romania (1948–1989), covering three areas: first, the state including its intentions and actions; second, ethnomusicologists as researchers of rural peasant music and employees of the state, and, third, the public as reached by state institutions. The article argues that Soviet-induced socialist cultural policy effectively constituted a repatriation of peasant music that was systematically collected; documented and researched; intentionally transformed into new products, such as folk orchestras, to facilitate the construction of communism; and then distributed in its new form through a network of state institutions like the mass media. Sources indicate that the socialist state was partially successful in convincing its citizens about the authenticity of the new product (that new folklore was real folklore) while the original peasant music was to a large extent inaccessible to nonspecialist audiences.

scholarly journals Intergenerational Upward (Im)mobility and Political Support of Public Education Spending

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debora Di Gioacchino ◽  
Laura Sabani ◽  
Stefano Usai
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Public Expenditures ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
The Public ◽  
Education Decisions ◽  
Low Education ◽  
Public Education Spending ◽  
Country Specific

AbstractThis paper provides a simple model of hierarchical education to study the political determination of public education spending and its allocation between different tiers of education. The model integrates private education decisions by allowing parents, who are differentiated according to income and human capital, to top up public expenditures with private transfers. We identify four groups of households with conflicting preferences over the the size of the public education budget and its allocation. In equilibrium, public education budget, private expenditures and expenditure allocation among different tiers of education, depend on which group of households is in power and on country-specific features such as income inequality and intergenerational persistence in education. By running a cluster analysis on 32 OECD countries, we seek to establish if distinctive ‘education regimes’, akin to those identified in the theoretical analysis, could be discerned. Our main finding is that a high intergenerational persistence in education might foster the establishment of education regimes in which the size and the allocation of the public budget among different tiers of education prevent a stable and significant increase of the population graduation rate, thus plunging the country in a ‘low education’ trap.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document