unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/06/89)
RECYCLING PICKS UP ACROSS THE COUNTRY
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October 2, 1989
By TERESA SIMONS
SACRAMENTO (UPI) -- Californians won't be alone when they start
recycling their trash under a new law expected to be signed by
Gov. George Deukmejian Friday.
Across the country, cities and states are faced with diminishing
space at landfills and are finding new ways to dispose of their
refuse.
San Jose city officials thought they had enough landfill space
for only nine more months of garbage when they embarked on an
ambitious curbside recycling program in 1983. It was the largest
in the nation, with nearly 60 percent of the households
complying, until New York City started a pilot curbside recycling
project earlier this year.
Coupled with composting and commercial recycling programs, San
Jose expects its recycling efforts will result in a 25 percent
reduction in waste generated by next year, said the city's waste
management director, Gary Liss.
Fifteen cities and towns -- ranging from Prairie Du Sac,
Wisconsin, with a population of 1,368, to Seattle, with a
population of 686,695 -- already have reduced their waste by 24
to 50 percent, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
in Washington.
And 10 states now -- or soon will -- require residents to
separate newspapers, bottles, paper, cardboard food packages or
other discarded items for recycling trucks or bins.
"Recycling is going to become the law -- not a good
environmental thing to do, but the law," said Kent Stoddard,
government affairs manager for Waste Management Inc., an
international waste management and recycling company based in
Chicago.
Every week, the company helps start three new curbside recycling
programs in the United States, said Stoddard.
Still, only about 10 percent of the nation's garbage is
recycled, compared to as much as 60 percent by some cities in
Japan and Europe.
And, Americans generate two and three times as much waste than
other countries -- 1,547 pounds per person each year.
That pile of trash holds 37.1 percent paper and cardboard, 17.9
percent yard wastes, 9.7 percent glass, 9.6 percent metals, 7.2
percent plastics, and 8.1 percent food wastes, according to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In recycling, usable products are separated from trash, then
processed so they can be substituted for more expensive raw
materials, and then returned to the marketplace as parts of new
products.
Some communities provide remarkable examples:
--The New Jersey city of Woodbury, population 10,500, says it
has cut the amount of garbage it dumps in landfills by half. It
started a program in 1984, and 85 percent of the households
comply, sorting their trash for newspaper, office paper, mail,
magazines and egg cartons. Raymond Jack, superintendent of
streets and utilities, said the city intends to strengthen its
enforcement so even more residents comply.
--The town of Longmeadow, Mass., population 16,000, has reduced
the waste it generates by 49 percent. Ninety percent of its
residents sort their trash for cardboard and paper items, and
compost yard waste during the fall.
Leslie Haskins, head of the Longmeadow Recycling Commission,
said she refuses to buy plastic bottles that can't be recycled.
She and her husband and 2-year-old son produce one barrel of
trash a week, and would generate even less if she didn't buy
disposable diapers. "That's the one luxury I have," she
apologizes.
Waste experts anticipate an entire new generation of business
innovations to accompany the upswing in recycling efforts, with
most coming in the form of new uses for recycled materials.
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
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