Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 11, 1991 TAG: 9102110274
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Convenience is the project's hallmark. Instead of residents being asked to separate plastic, paper and aluminum discards for later curbside-collection by the county, they can dump all these recyclables into a 60-gallon, rollout container for a special collection once a month.
The commingled waste products will then be taken to a private company, Cycle Systems, which has semiautomatic equipment that will sort the products by type.
Environmental purists may argue that this extends old attitudes that got our throwaway society into heaps of trouble to begin with: Trash it and forget it. Let somebody else, in centralized facilities, worry about it. Moreover, the experience of other localities around the country has shown this system, like others, is vulnerable to glitches.
Even so, residents will be doing a good part of the recycling. And it makes sense that the easier and simpler it is for consumers, the more they'll be willing and likely to participate in a voluntary recycling project.
Each year, Virginians generate more than 9 million tons a year (about 1.5 tons per resident) of solid waste, not counting industrial wastes. Meanwhile, landfill space shrinks and disposal costs rise.
Because, under state mandate, each city, county and town in Virginia must reduce the amount of garbage it buries in landfills by 25 percent by 1995, recycling projects are becoming crucial to local strategies for reducing solid waste. There's no reason why different localities shouldn't experiment with varying strategies to reach their goal.
Vinton, which has had a mandatory recycling program in place since last May, reports that 95 percent participation in 2,900 households has enabled it to reduce loads headed for landfills by about 38 percent.
Roanoke County - which had one of the state's first voluntary curbside recycling programs involving residents' separation of recyclables by type - is sticking with the voluntary concept for the time being.
County officials are hoping the added convenience of commingled recyclables will make their new project so popular in the 1,700 homes where it will be tested this spring that it can go countywide soon.
For residents, it won't be as convenient as indiscriminately dumping all their trash and garbage into one bag or can - nor should it be. People need to think more conscientiously about the environmental effects of all their habits. They need to recognize that litter that can be reused has economic value.
As they sort out what's reusable from what's not, they also should be aware that every ton that can be recycled is a ton they, as taxpayers, don't have to pay the government to bury.
by CNB