A garbage man friend of mine told me that the whole program is government subsidized, and that a large portion ends up in land fills anyway. It doesn't save anything.
lmr, I would especially appreciate any insite that you have into the matter of municipal ineptitude in recycling.
Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Dallas' recycling program is a $17 million joke (May 16, 2002)
Trashy Questions: City auditors take a belated look at Dallas' recycling program (June 6, 2002)
Recycling Works (July 7, 2002)
Letters to the Editor:
New life for newsprint: I am writing regarding the article "Garbage In, Garbage Out" in the May 16 edition of the Dallas Observer. You stated in the article, "The city's curbside recycling program is a waste of time and money." While we don't argue that recovering recyclable material and reusing it in industry can be expensive, it is important to remember that recycling is about much more than saving landfill space. According to EPA studies, recycling saves more natural resources and prevents pollution. In fact, by 2005, recycling will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 48 million tons, the equivalent of the amount emitted by 36 million cars annually.
What you discussed in your article does not represent the range of thinking on recycling. According to the American Forest and Paper Association, 84 percent of all Americans are recycling used paper at curbside and recycling drop-off sites. Each and every day, Americans recover for reuse and recycling about 247 million pounds of paper. That means nearly 45 percent of all the paper Americans now use is recovered for recycling.
Abitibi-Consolidated is the largest recycler of old newspaper and magazines in North America. Our mill in Sheldon, Texas, manufactures 100 percent recycled newsprint that is used by The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle and many others. The Sheldon mill consumes 80 percent of the old newspapers and magazines recycled in the state of Texas. The newspapers the residents of Dallas put at the curb each week don't go to waste...we use them. Our business depends on recycling programs like the one in Dallas.
With the simple act of recycling every day, you provide jobs, reduce air emissions, save energy and supply valuable raw materials for Texas businesses. All of this helps to ensure the health of our planet and the community's future generations.
Frank Killoran
Area Manager,
Abitibi-Consolidated, Recycling Division
Arlington
Cash for Trash: The city's new recycling center is up and running, sort of (Nov 11, 2002)
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And now, thanks to the miracle of electronic archives, let's peek at the columns written by none other than, our current Dallas mayor and former leftie columnist, Ms. Laura Miller Wolens:
As mayor, she now says...
"I think that if you spend $2 million, you ought to get more than 4 percent of your trash recycled for that kind of money," Miller says. "We have an inefficient recycling program that unfortunately hasn't been very successful in terms of the amount of tonnage that we are recycling."
Why just a few years ago, she commented...
Spouting rubbish: Dallas has run out of recycling excuses, by Laura Miller (Nov 30, 1995)
....That's ridiculous (says Laura). We could do recycling citywide tomorrow morning if we wanted to. LuAnn Anderson says it would cost $1 million that we don't have, but that's a fiction, too. If recycling were so expensive and burdensome, the private sector wouldn't do it at all. But Waste Management of Dallas, the giant garbage-collection company, just opened a huge recycling facility in West Dallas called Recycle America....
No doubt that the issues is much more complicated than it may seem at first glance, but the dollar does indeed flow as efficiently as possible to its destination, excepting government intervention.