Recycle It ... No, Ban It ... No
...
The city of Los Angeles has
added
Styrofoam, plastic grocery bags and plastic hangers to
the list of items it accepts for recycling. The expansion
is part of an effort to reach Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa´s
ambitious goal of recycling, by 2015, 70% of the estimated
10 million tons of waste Angelenos generate annually.
But the future of this recycling expansion is cloudy,
because several groups are calling for statewide bans on
plastic bags and Styrofoam.
The aforelinked article contains this eye-popping
statistic: Processing a ton of recycled Styrofoam costs
$3,320, while the comparative figure for glass is about
$90.
This all reminds me of the old Steven Wright riddle: If
you need to send someone some Styrofoam, what should you
pack it in?
To me the answer is obvious: Tie it up in one of those
handy-dandy plastic bags and send it on its squeaky way.
Locks In Freshness
While we´re on the topic of peculiar recyclables, a
coastal county in New Jersey has
set up four
drop-off points to help collect and reuse the estimated 65
tons of shrink wrap used by area boaters each year
to preserve small watercraft during winter.
Which leads me to wonder: If you need to send someone
some shrink wrap ...
ATM For Addicts (I Haight To Say
It, But ...)
The San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting
article a few days
ago about a longtime neighborhood recycling center near
Golden Gate Park that has come under fire because
neighbors complain it is a magnet for homeless people and
that it breeds illegal activity like theft of recyclables,
public drunkenness and drug use.
Usually I´m a softie when it comes to dealing with
people whose lives have collapsed to the point that they
don´t have a house or apartment to live in. But to me this
recycling center sounds like an institution that has run
its course.
Pete Fehrenbach is
managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this
column are collected in
the Inbox archive.
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http://www.wastenews.com
