David sells himself short because he's pretty on-target here. Plastics were and in many cases, still are uneconomical to recycle. Some of the technical issues have been solved since recycling first started up and now the bigger hurdle is demand. Somebody has to want the collected material in order for it to have value. That's why you may hear more these days about "closing the loop" when you talk to recycling advocates. Because "virgin" plastic is so cheap, it's difficult to establish demand. Kind of like it's harder to get people to think about riding the bus when gas cost $1 a gallon vs. $2.
I don't recall the specific debates around when recycling first got started in Minneapolis since I think I was in middle or high school then but as far as whether subsidizing plastic recycling makes sense, I personally say no. My preference would be for Minneapolis (and Hennepin County) to keep ramping up educational efforts to get away from using disposable plastics to begin with. It seems wrong to me for taxpayers to subsidize unnecessary waste for the sake of convenience. Is it really that hard to bring a cloth shopping bag with you to the grocery store (or better yet, the food co-op!) so you don't have to take a plastic or paper bag? Since I'm one of those slackers who drives most everywhere, I keep my cloth bags in my car so I always have them ready. If I may make a shameless plug, other keen waste reduction tips are available at www.reduce.org. :-) In the case of the Strib bags, an alternative might be to use the new starch-based plastic bags that biodegrade when composted with food/yard waste. My office building uses a brand of these made by a company called BioCorp to collect food and low-grade papers like napkins to be composted. Maybe Steve Brandt can send this idea up the pipeline? And David, I hope you were joking about the smelter. I just read recently about a toy company that came out with a clay made from PVC plastics. After molding, kids are supposed to bake the clay - which releases all sorts of nasty PVC fumes for the poor kids to breathe. Yuck!!! Mark Snyder Ward 1/Windom Park [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 3/12/02 9:06 PM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: "David Brauer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Mpls list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: RE: [Mpls] Trash: Paper or Plastic? > Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 17:17:47 -0600 > > Pam, I only have ancient history, back in my Twin Cities Reader > reporting days. > > Then - and I believe, now - plastic was uneconomical to recycle. The > city couldn't sell it for what it cost to collect, unlike other > materials. Plastic has all kind of gnarly factors that prevent it from > being a good collectable - lightweight (lotsa storage, little recyclable > material) and most plastic stuff is a blend of material that's hard to > remanufacture into pure resin (thus the park benches, etc. that you see > out there. There may be growing demand for those, but the supply is also > growing, probably faster). <snip> _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
