Bowling Green Offers Effective Alternatives to Traditional Power Sources

The city of Bowling Green, Ohio is on the cutting edge of clean, alternative energy sources; as well as a recycling program that has few rivals. The city offers green power to all its residents at little extra cost. In fact the customers cost rises a mere “$0.013 per kWh” or “about $8 to $10 more per month for the average customer” according to the cities web-site (www.bgohio.org), simply follow the public utilities bar to the natures energy and then behold the good news.

The wind-mills, just west of town on Ohio State Route 6, are a sight to behold. Truly magnificent blades towering over the farm-land, dwarfing anything that dare encroach on them. Always spinning lazily, yet affording enough power that the city seems to offer no limit to the amount of residents who may purchase their electricity. The city also uses electric produced by a hydro-electric dam somewhere near town, as well as the University using solar panels to power its entire hockey\basketball arena. There for the city is using three naturally occurring, and usually taken for granted, events to beautify itself and the world around it by cutting down on pollution. It would almost seem elementary that all moderate sized cities would be passing levies or attempting to gain government grants for similar projects. Imagine the self-sufficiency that would be achieved. No more black outs caused by Ohio Edison that wipe out power all the way from Toledo, OH to New York, NY. Not to mention the quality of life improvement.

On top of the energy improvements, the city also offers a recycling program so simple that you must only put glass, aluminum, steel or plastic in bins, unsorted, next to your trash on pick-up day. Even my house of four students can handle that responsibility! Nearly every house on trash day has a bin sitting out front. Why is this service also not offered in every decent sized city? It simply makes since to try and reduce the amount of trash put into our landfills. Why, also, do more states not demand that deposits be paid on glass or aluminum bottles so as to encourage recycling where programs like these are not available? Are the politicians afraid of upsetting their constituency by raising the price of a case of beer or pop by five-cents a can? Why aren’t they making the consciences decisions that they all pound their fists about in their silly little scripted debated on C-Span?

In closing I’ll simply say that cities like Bowling Green need to be observed for what they are, a road map to a brighter future that can be easily read and followed if only others would try. These are complicated ecological problems that face us, green house effect etc., meanwhile these are simple solutions to those problems. Why not give them a try?