HELP OUR WORLD 1997:  Sponsored Raycycle's performance at Hurlbutt, receiving line checkers for Weston - inspiring Brownie participation for "Good Riddance Day" too, plus in-house efforts for the high school - now coming into their own in this new century!  As Ray sang..."Re-re-re recycle, re-re-re- reuse it" and probably..."re-re-re reduce it" are the three-r's for the future!  Lunch Box does a renovation that is an expansion, but that was to make it more efficient, not a bigger operation - awesome, renewing its persona for the 21st century - see more L.B. pix here.  Is the rooster part of the wait staff?  Check out alternative to ubiquitous plastic bags...and then link to Secondary Materials page.
R E - R E - R E - R E C Y C L I N G    2 0 1 1 :  C T    D . E . P .    G L O S S A R Y
Can't live without stuff - here today and back tomorrow!


SB 58
Five-cent fee proposed for paper and plastic bags
CT POST
Vinti Singh, Staff Writer
Published: 08:49 a.m., Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Connecticut residents could be paying 5 cents for every plastic or paper bag they get when they go shopping, under a proposal from the Senate chairman of the state Legislature's Environment Committee.

"The bill is consistent with a drive in the U.S. that recognizes plastic bags have a life of over 100 years and are really hostile to a good environment," said Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford. "We're trying get people to convert to reusable cloth bags, and this gives them an incentive."

Under the measure, the revenue produced by the 5-cent tax would go into a conservation fund overseen by the state Department of Environmental Protection, Meyer said. The department would have discretion over how to spend it.

People on food stamps would be exempt from the tax.

A similar bill was proposed in 2009 by then-House Majority Leader Denise Merrill. That measure failed, in part because a citizens coalition in Westport campaigned against it, calling instead for an all-out ban on plastic bags.

That opposition is likely to surface again.

"Five cents doesn't mean a hell of a lot to anybody these days," said Gene Seidman, a member of Westport's Representative Town Meeting, who was a key player in getting the plastic bag ban passed in town. "If you want to affect things, you have to charge a hefty price, like a dollar."

Seidman said Connecticut should enact a statewide ban on plastic bags, which would encourage a similar national ban. He also advocated educational programs that would push people to use more reusable bags.

Meyer considered proposing a ban on the bags, but concluded it wouldn't have a realistic chance of passing. He called the 5-cent tax a "middle road," and said he was confident Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would sign it into law if it passed the full Legislature.

The non-profit Center for Consumer Freedom criticized the legislation, saying reusable bags could contain lead or bacteria and that the bags have 28 times the carbon footprint of plastic bags.

Meyer dismissed the nonprofit as a group funded by the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries that sponsor campaigns to oppose the efforts of scientists and environmentalists.

"Everything's got bacteria and we've gotten no indication from the Department of Public Health or environmental groups that there are any lead problems with these bags," Meyer said.

State House Environment Committee Chairman Richard Roy, D-Milford, said he supported the bill.

"We're hoping we'll pick up a few more bucks for the budget, and we hope if people have to pay, they'll switch to reusable bags," Roy said.

Calif. rejects ban on plastic shopping bags
YAHOO
By ROBIN HINDERY, Associated Press Writer
1 September 2010

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice.  The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use.  The measure offered California an opportunity to emerge at the forefront of a global trend, said Sen. Gil Cedillo, who carried the measure on the Senate floor.

"If we don't solve this problem today, if we don't create a statewide standard, if we don't provide the leadership that is being called for, others will," the Los Angeles Democrat said during Tuesday evening's debate.

Discouraging plastic bag use through fees or bans first gained traction outside of the U.S. in nations such as South Africa, Ireland, China and Bangladesh. In January, Washington, D.C., implemented a 5-cent surcharge on disposable paper and plastic bags. A handful of California cities already ban single-use plastic bags, after San Francisco became the first to do so in 2007.  Palo Alto, Malibu and Fairfax in Marin County have since followed, while a ban approved in Manhattan Beach is tied up in litigation, said Matthew King, a spokesman for Heal the Bay, the Santa Monica-based nonprofit that sponsored AB1998.

Supporters of the bill said the 19 billion plastic bags state residents use every year harm the environment and cost the state $25 million annually to collect and transport to landfills. It had been the subject of a furious lobbying campaign by the plastic bag manufacturing industry, which called it a job killer.  The bill's author, Democratic Assemblywoman Julia Brownley of Santa Monica, said lawmakers had failed Californians by defeating the measure. But she said the movement to ban plastic bags would continue despite the setback.

"It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when consumers bring their own bags and become good stewards of the environment," Brownley said in a statement early Wednesday morning.

The bill, AB1998, called for the ban to take effect in supermarkets and large retail stores in 2012. It would have applied to smaller stores in 2013.  Republicans and some Democrats opposed it, saying it would add an extra burden on consumers and businesses at a time when many already are struggling financially.

"If we pass this piece of legislation, we will be sending a message to the people of California that we care more about banning plastic bags than helping them put food on their table," said Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Lake Forest.

The bill's main opponent, the Virginia-based American Chemistry Council, spent millions in lobbying fees, radio ads and even a prime-time television ad attacking the measure. The organization represents plastic bag manufacturers such as Dow Chemical Co. and ExxonMobil Corp.  Last year, it helped defeat an effort by Seattle to impose a 20-cent fee on the use of plastic or paper grocery bags.  The organization issued a statement early Wednesday morning applauding the bill's defeat.

"We congratulate Senate members for discarding a costly bill that provides no real solutions to California's litter problem and would have further jeopardized California's already strained economy," said Tim Shestek, the group's senior director of state affairs.

The Senate took final action at the very end of the legislative session, reflecting how difficult it had been to muster support. The bill received just 14 votes in the Senate, seven short of the majority it needed.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, was one of half a dozen Democrats to vote against the bill. She said the state instead should offer incentives for reducing the use of plastic bags before imposing a statewide mandate.

Brownley had amended her bill in the days leading up to the Senate vote in an ultimately futile attempt to gain more support.  Most significantly, she removed a provision that would have imposed 5-cent fee for customers who forget to bring their own bag and need to buy a recycled paper one. The proceeds would have gone entirely to the retailer.  Under the revised bill, retailers would have been allowed to charge only what it costs them to buy paper bags. Stores would have been required to provide free bags to shoppers who rely on government assistance.

A state law that took effect in 2007 already requires supermarkets and other large retailers to provide plastic bag recycling bins.  In recent weeks, some local government officials said they would take matters into their own hands if the bill failed. According to Heal the Bay, officials in Los Angeles County, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica said they would pursue individual city- and countywide bans in the coming months.

Plastic bags in US — to pay or not to pay?
YAHOO
By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer
Feb. 22, 2010

WASHINGTON – For decades the standard question at U.S. grocery store check-out counters has been "Paper or Plastic?" But since January, consumers in the U.S. capital have faced a different question: "Will you pay 5 cents for a bag?"

Europeans have long accepted the idea of providing their own baskets, bags or nets to carry their purchases, or paying for bags. But in the United States, where retailers go out of their way to cater to customers' needs, being given a free paper or plastic bag to carry purchases is largely taken for granted. So not all Washingtonians are pleased.

"I think it's unnecessary," said Daniel Koroma, 57, as he toted groceries home from a supermarket in a plastic bag that he'd paid for. "They sell you the groceries, they should give you something to put them in."

While one major city, San Francisco, has banned plastic bags, Washington's law is the first of its kind in the United States. It is being carefully watched by activists who hope that one strong success will prove the tipping point for a program aimed at reducing litter, pollution and waste.

"Whichever state is going to pull this is off is going to have the potential to be seen as the one that has cracked this problem," said Vincent Cobb, founder of reuseit.com Web site that promotes recycling and sells reuseable bags.

Whether Washington's law will prove to be a trendsetter remains to be seen. The issue has sparked debate and many shoppers would rather juggle items in their arms or drive to stores in neighboring states where bags are still free.

Adding to the debate over the law is that while it was aimed at supermarkets, it has ended up applying to anyone selling edible items, including bookshops, clothing stores and small gift shops.

But some Washington residents have embraced it. Twana Littlejohn, who manages a Starbucks, said she feels good knowing that she's doing something for the planet her grandchildren will inherit.

"I've stocked reusable bags in my car so whenever I go shopping, I just have to pull one out," Littlejohn said. "It's not hard."

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 3,960 thousand tons of plastics waste, including bags, sacks, and wraps was generated in 2008. Of those, barely 1 percent were recycled. The agency does not keep statistics on the effectiveness of fees or bans on bags.

"These programs are still new in the U.S.," said EPA spokeswoman Tisha Petteway.

In 2002, Ireland enacted a nationwide mandate to charge a fee of 15 cents per bag on all plastic bags. According to the Irish government agency that monitors the program, it has reduced annual plastic bag use from an estimated 328 to 21 per person.

San Francisco enacted its ban in 2007 and similar legislation is to take effect in July in Los Angeles, where shoppers will be charged 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable one. But attempts by other U.S. cities and states to curb the predominance of plastic shopping bags have been rejected, most notably in eco-friendly West Coast city of Seattle, where voters last August overturned legislation to charge 20 cents per bag.

Keith Christman, Managing Director of Plastics Markets for the American Chemistry Council argues that Seattle's attempt to charge for bags angered residents who were already overwhelmingly recycling and reusing their bags, which he says is the better option.

"Every time you get an opportunity to reuse a bag like that, you get a chance to prevent another one being made," Christman said.

Proponents counter that fees, such as that in Washington, have a positive fallout effect, forcing consumers to consider whether they really need a bag.

Littlejohn says in the weeks since the law's enactment, she has seen a drop in demand for the recycled paper sacks that Starbucks hands out, although they are still free.

"I'm not giving out as many anymore," Littlejohn said "I'm cutting down on my paper costs."
This is what SW Connecticut did first, then Capitol Region, and now...watch and listen to First Selectman Weinstein on this subject!!!
 Stonington recycling process just got simpler for residents; Sorting of plastic, glass, cans, paper to be done in Willimantic facility
By Joe Wojtas Day Staff Writer
Article published Dec 23, 2009

Stonington - Recycling is now a lot easier for residents.

They no longer have to put plastic, glass and cans in one bin and paper in the another and they now can recycle more kinds of plastic.

That's because the town began sending recyclables to a facility in Willimantic known as a single-stream recycler because the mix of plastic, glass, cans and paper are dumped on the floor of the facility where equipment then sorts it. Residents can now place all the items in one bin.

Before Nov. 1, the town had been sending its bottles, cans and plastic to a facility in Groton, which did not accept paper. The paper had to be sent to a facility in Willimantic. That meant people had to separate the two groups of items into separate bins.

The town is member of the Southeastern Resource Recovery Agency, which had been leasing the land and buildings at the Groton facility.

That contract is set to expire next year, so the 11 towns in the agency decided to instead sign a contract with Willimantic Waste Paper Inc. and send all their recyclable items there.
"Single-stream is definitely the way to go," said John Phetteplace, the town's solid-waste manager.

Another benefit for residents is that number 3 to 7 plastics, pots, pans, coat hangers and small metal items can now be recycled.

Phetteplace said this is not only is an environmental benefit but helps residents reduce the amount of trash they place in the yellow trash bags that they must buy from the town to dispose of garbage, which will save them money.

Phetteplace asked residents not to use any containers larger than 32 gallons for the recyclables because large ones are difficult to dump onto the trucks. He said the change is not expected to have any major impact on the town's solid-waste budget.

China’s Trash Incinerators Loom as a Global Hazard
NYTIMES
By KEITH BRADSHER
August 12, 2009

SHENZHEN, China — In this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China stand two hulking brown buildings erected by a private company, the Longgang trash incinerators. They can be smelled a mile away and pour out so much dark smoke and hazardous chemicals that hundreds of local residents recently staged an all-day sit-in, demanding that the incinerators be cleaner and that a planned third incinerator not be built nearby.

After surpassing the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage, China has embarked on a vast program to build incinerators as landfills run out of space. But these incinerators have become a growing source of toxic emissions, from dioxin to mercury, that can damage the body’s nervous system.

And these pollutants, particularly long-lasting substances like dioxin and mercury, are dangerous not only in China, a growing body of atmospheric research based on satellite observations suggests. They float on air currents across the Pacific to American shores.

Chinese incinerators can be better. At the other end of Shenzhen from Longgang, no smoke is visible from the towering smokestack of the Baoan incinerator, built by a company owned by the municipal government. Government tests show that it emits virtually no dioxin and other pollutants.

But the Baoan incinerator cost 10 times as much as the Longgang incinerators, per ton of trash-burning capacity.

The difference between the Baoan and Longgang incinerators lies at the center of a growing controversy in China. Incinerators are being built to wildly different standards across the country and even across cities like Shenzhen. For years Chinese government regulators have discussed the need to impose tighter limits on emissions. But they have done nothing because of a bureaucratic turf war, a Chinese government official and Chinese incineration experts said.

The Chinese government is struggling to cope with the rapidly rising mountains of trash generated as the world’s most populated country has raced from poverty to rampant consumerism. Beijing officials warned in June that all of the city’s landfills would run out of space within five years.

The governments of several cities with especially affluent, well-educated citizens, including Beijing and Shanghai, are setting pollution standards as strict as Europe’s. Despite those standards, protests against planned incinerators broke out this spring in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shenzhen.

Increasingly outspoken residents in big cities are deeply distrustful that incinerators will be built and operated to international standards. “It’s hard to say whether this standard will be reached — maybe the incinerator is designed to reach this benchmark, but how do we know it will be properly operated?” said Zhao Yong, a computer server engineer who has become a neighborhood activist in Beijing against plans for an incinerator there.

Yet far dirtier incinerators continue to be built in inland cities where residents have shown little awareness of pollution.

Studies at the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., have estimated that a sixth of the mercury now falling on North American lakes comes from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from incinerators. Pollution from incinerators also tends to be high in toxic metals like cadmium.

Incinerators play the most important role in emissions of dioxin. Little research has been done on dioxin crossing the Pacific. But analyses of similar chemicals have shown that they can travel very long distances.

A 2005 report from the World Bank warned that if China built incinerators rapidly and did not limit their emissions, worldwide atmospheric levels of dioxin could double. China has since slowed its construction of incinerators and limited their emissions somewhat, but the World Bank has yet to do a follow-up report.

Airborne dioxin is not the only problem from incinerators. The ash left over after combustion is laced with dioxin and other pollutants. Zhong Rigang, the chief engineer at the Baoan incinerator here, said that his operation sent its ash to a special landfill designed to cope with toxic waste. But an academic paper last year by Nie Yongfeng, a Tsinghua University professor and government adviser who sees a need for more incinerators, said that most municipal landfills for toxic waste lacked room for the ash, so the ash was dumped.

Trash incinerators have two advantages that have prompted Japan and much of Europe to embrace them: they occupy much less real estate than landfills, and the heat from burning trash can be used to generate electricity. The Baoan incinerator generates enough power to light 40,000 households.

And landfills have their own environmental hazards. Decay in landfills also releases large quantities of methane, a powerful global warming gas, said Robert McIlvaine, president of McIlvaine Company, an energy consulting firm that calculates the relative costs of addressing disparate environmental hazards. Methane from landfills is a far bigger problem in China than toxic pollutants from incinerators, particularly modern incinerators like those in Baoan, he said.

China’s national regulations still allow incinerators to emit 10 times as much dioxin as incinerators in the European Union; American standards are similar to those in Europe. Tightening of China’s national standards has been stuck for three years in a bureaucratic war between the environment ministry and the main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said a Beijing official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.

The agencies agree that tighter standards on dioxin emissions are needed. They disagree on whether the environment ministry should have the power to stop incinerator projects that do not meet tighter standards, the official said, adding that the planning agency wants to retain the power to decide which projects go ahead.

Yan Jianhua, the director of the solid waste treatment expert group in Zhejiang province, a center of incinerator equipment manufacturing in China, defended the industry’s record on dioxin, saying that households that burn their trash outdoors emit far more dioxin.

“Open burning is a bigger problem according to our research,” Professor Yan said, adding that what China really needs is better trash collection so that garbage can be disposed of more reliably.

Critics and admirers of incinerators alike call for more recycling and reduced use of packaging as ways to reduce the daily volume of municipal garbage. Even when not recycled, sorted trash is easier for incinerators to burn cleanly, because the temperature in the furnace can be adjusted more precisely to minimize the formation of dioxin.

Yet the Chinese public has shown little enthusiasm for recycling. As Mr. Zhong, the engineer at the Baoan incinerator, put it, “No one really cares.”

A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics
NYTIMES
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
June 30, 2009

This month, Edward Reilly, 35, finally let go of the television he had owned since his college days.

Although the Mitsubishi set was technologically outdated, it had sat for years in Mr. Reilly’s home in Portland, Me., because he did not know what else to do with it, given the environmental hazards involved in discarding it.

“It’s pretty well known that if it gets into the landfill, it gets into the groundwater,” he said. “Its chemicals pollute.”

But the day after the nationwide conversion to digital television signals took effect on June 12, Mr. Reilly decided to take advantage of a new wave of laws in Maine and elsewhere that require television and computer manufacturers to recycle their products free of charge. He dropped off his television at an electronic waste collection site near his home and, he said, immediately gained “peace of mind.”

Over the course of that day, 700 other Portland residents did the same.

Since 2004, 18 states and New York City have approved laws that make manufacturers responsible for recycling electronics, and similar statutes were introduced in 13 other states this year. The laws are intended to prevent a torrent of toxic and outdated electronic equipment — television sets, computers, monitors, printers, fax machines — from ending up in landfills where they can leach chemicals into groundwater and potentially pose a danger to public health.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates 99.1 million televisions sit unused in closets and basements across the country. Consumer response to recycling has been enormous in states where the laws have taken effect. Collection points in Washington State, for example, have been swamped by people like Babs Smith, 55, who recently drove to RE-PC, a designated electronics collection and repurposing center on the southern edge of Seattle.

Ms. Smith’s Subaru Outback was stuffed with three aged computer towers that had languished in her basement after being gutted by her teenage sons, who removed choice bits to build their own souped-up computers. “It’s what geeks do,” she said.

Since January, Washington State residents and small businesses have been allowed to drop off their televisions, computers and computer monitors free of charge to one of 200 collection points around the state. They have responded by dumping more than 15 million pounds of electronic waste, according to state collection data. If disposal continues at this rate, it will amount to more than five pounds for every man, woman and child per year.

Use of the drop-off points was so overwhelming at first that the Washington Materials Management and Financing Authority, which oversees the program, urged consumers to consider holding off until spring.

“We were getting 18 semi loads a day when the program first started,” said Craig Lorch, owner of Total Reclaim, a warehouse on the south edge of Seattle that is among the collection points.

Still, states that pioneered the electronic recycling laws report that consumer participation remains strong over time. Maine, which was one of the first to approve such a law, in 2004, says it collected nearly four pounds of waste per person last year.

“If you make it easy, they will recycle their stuff,” said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco. If products are recycled rather than dumped, parts of the machines are refurbished for new use where possible; if not, they are disassembled, their glass and precious metals are recycled, and the plastics, which have no reuse market, are often shipped overseas to developing countries for disposal.

The laws vary significantly from state to state. But in most, manufacturers are responsible for the collection and recycling system, although some will pay states or counties to handle the pickup. The newest laws tend to require recycling of a broader range of items, including printers and fax machines.

Many laws, including those for New Jersey and Connecticut and New York City (none of which are yet in effect) specifically ban residents from dumping electronics into the regular trash.

Least thrilled with the patchwork of laws are electronics manufacturers. “Our hope is there will be a national law before there is a law in every state,” said Parker Brugge, vice president for environmental affairs and industry sustainability for the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry advocacy group.

Mr. Brugge said it was difficult for manufacturers to keep up with dozens of laws and rules, many of which they consider impractical. New York City, for example, is pressing manufacturers to agree to pick up at apartment buildings.

Manufacturers say a reasonable rate for collection and processing of waste is 25 to 30 cents a pound. Still it is more than they say they can recoup from reselling the metals they harvest, particularly for televisions.

Peter M. Fannon, the vice president for technology and government policy at Panasonic’s North American subsidiary, said his company would prefer a national law that would put local governments in charge of collection and the industry in charge of recycling.

“We think it is unreasonable that an individual industry be designated as trash collector,” Mr. Fannon said.

State lawmakers counter that they cannot afford to wait for a national bill. With constant upgrades in technological capability, they say, manufacturers build obsolescence into many of their designs, causing outdated electronics to become the bane of the waste system.

The E.P.A. estimates that 2.6 million tons of electronic waste were dropped into landfills in 2007, the most recent year for which data is available. Once buried, the waste leaches poisons like chlorinated solvents and heavy metals into soil and groundwater.

Recycling programs do not address the problem of electronics that are already leaching poison in landfills. Nor do they prevent the frequent shipment of plastic shells covered with chemical flame retardants overseas to poor and developing nations; once there, they are often incinerated, because they cannot be reused, and spew toxic chemicals into the air.

The Office of the Inspector General at the Justice Department has a continuing investigation into accusations that several federal prisons with electronics recycling contracts had used inmates to do the work without taking adequate safety precautions, exposing them to unhealthy levels of airborne particles.

Ultimately, said Ms. Kyle, coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, recycling does not eliminate the root problem: the vast amount of electronics generated in the first place and fated for disposal.

Carole A. Cifrino, the environmental specialist who manages Maine’s e-waste program, said she hoped the strict recycling would eventually prompt manufacturers to rethink their designs.

“Maybe since they have some responsibility for the cleanup,” Ms. Cifrino said, “it will motivate them to think about how you design for the environment and the commodity value at the end of the life.”

Hattie Bernstein contributed reporting from Portland, Me., and Claudia Rowe from Seattle.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry advocacy group, as the Electronic Manufacturers Association.

Tough times hit even garbage museum
Connecticut Post Staff
Updated: 12/31/2008 02:09:06 PM EST

Not even the garbage is immune.

A facility that championed environmentalism before the rest of the world caught up, the Garbage Museum on Honeyspot Road Extension in Stratford has been a somewhat off-the-wall local attraction since the 1990s. But with funding running out, the fun may be over.

The museum, at the Southwest Connecticut Recycling facility, features attractions such as Trash-o-saurus, a 2,000-pound dinosaur built from trash and old toys, as well as a variety of exhibits about the virtues of recycling and protecting the environment. It's a popular field trip destination for local grade-schoolers, but they soon may need to make new plans.

The Garbage Museum and its educational programs have been funded since 1995 by the Southwest Connecticut Recycling Committee, a group of 19 area towns and cities that oversees operation of the regional recycling facility in Stratford. Six of those communities, however, have decided to pull out of the committee and send their recyclable materials elsewhere. That decision leaves the museum's annual $266,000 budget well short of what it needs to be.

With 30,000 visitors each year, it's clear the museum has something to offer the area. Though it likely doesn't show up on many "Best in Connecticut" lists, it's our own slice of glorified green living here in southern New England.

Officials say efforts are under way to find other revenue sources, such as corporate and charitable sponsors, and by getting in touch with the state's congressional delegation for help. If nothing comes through, though, that's it for the trash exhibits.

That would be a shame. Though funds are needed elsewhere with greater urgency, a charitable or corporate sponsorship to keep the facility open -- and keep spreading the word to young people about the good that comes from recycling -- would be fortunate. Give the kids their Trash-o-saurus.
Bottom Drops Out of Recycling Industry
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:21 p.m. ET
December 7, 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Norm Steenstra's budgeting worries mount with each new load of cardboard, aluminum cans and plastics jugs dumped at West Virginia's largest county recycling center.

Faced with a dramatic slump in the recycling market, the director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority has cut 20 of his 24 employees' work week to four days from five, shuttered six of the authority's drop-off stations and is urging residents to hoard their recyclables after informing municipalities with curbside recycling programs that the center will accept only paper until further notice.

''The market is just not there anymore,'' Steenstra said.

Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

Cardboard that sold for about $135 a ton in September is now going for $35 a ton. Plastic bottles have fallen from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans dropped nearly half to about 40 cents a pound, and scrap metal tumbled from $525 a gross ton to about $100.

It's getting more difficult to find buyers in some markets, Streenstra said.

While few across the country appear to be taking such drastic measures as Streenstra, the recycling market has gotten so bad that haulers in Oregon and Nevada who were once paid for recyclables are now getting nothing or in some cases are having to pay to unload their wares.

In Washington state, what was once a multimillion-dollar revenue source for the city of Seattle may become a liability next year as the city may have to start paying companies to take their materials.

Some in the business are describing the downturn as the worst and fastest ever.

''It's never gone from so good to so bad so fast,'' said Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. in Pekin, Ill., who has been in the recycling business since 1975.

The turnaround caught everyone off guard, said Steven Kowalsky, president of Empire Recycling in Utica, N.Y.

''Nobody saw it coming. Absolutely nobody,'' Kowalsky said. ''Even the biggest players didn't see it coming.''

At the height of the market just months ago, customers lined the street outside Kowalsky's business, hoping to hawk scrap to pay rising food and fuel costs.

''That's not happening anymore,'' he said.

The Kanawha County authority, which sells donated recyclables from residents and municipalities, sells about 7,500 tons of paper, plastic and aluminum a year, Steenstra said.

Ted Armbrecht III, managing partner of The Wine Shop at Capital Market in Charleston, says it won't be a problem piling up his recyclables at home, but he doesn't have that luxury with his wine business, which uses a lot of cardboard boxes.

''We'll hold onto it as long as we can, but once it reaches a tipping point, the only other place it's going to go is the dumpster,'' he said.

Trey Granger, spokesman for Earth911, a national environmental resource group, said the public's interest in recycling should be able to weather the downturn in an industry that has been growing for more than 30 years and has always been cyclical.

''Obviously times are tough,'' Granger said. ''I wouldn't worry more about this more than any other aspect of the economic downturn we're facing.''

Last year, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They recycled about 150 million tons of material -- roughly 80 million of that in iron and steel -- supporting an industry that employs about 85,000 with $70 billion in sales, said Bob Garino, director of commodities at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that represents more than 1,600 companies worldwide.

Most recyclables are shipped to Asian countries that use the material to make products that are shipped backed to the United States to be sold.

But the market shift is now jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of long-term contracts for scrap metal as some companies that signed when prices were high are trying to cancel or postpone deliveries to take advantage of the cheaper spot market, Garino said.

Davis, of Midland Davis Corp. in Illinois, said he hopes to wait out the market and may rent warehouse space to store his more perishable recyclables, like paper, until he can find buyers. He has some room to stockpile cans and plastics because in July, when prices were high, he unloaded more material than during any month in the past 10 years.

''It's going to be bleak for a while,'' he said. ''We can just make our piles taller, and hopefully by spring, things will be a little better.''

Whether that will come as early as spring is debatable.

''I don't know if we are at the bottom yet, bouncing along the bottom or we have new lows to achieve,'' Garino said.

The market's not likely to bounce back until the economy improves. Kowalsky estimates it could be several years.

''It's just time to pull in your horns and maintain what you have and try to survive until 2010,'' he said.
Seeing a Pitched Battle Over Plastic Bags
NYTIMES
By MIREYA NAVARRO
November 18, 2008

Steven Thrasher usually carries two reusable cloth bags for any impromptu shopping. At the Ikea store in Brooklyn the other day, he gladly forked over $1.18 for two of the store’s big blue bags, made of durable plastic for repeated use.

But even an environmentally aware New Yorker like Mr. Thrasher cannot shake himself loose of the everyday disposable plastic bag. Friends visit him with food and drink wrapped in plastic. Sometimes, caught without his cloth bags when running into a store for an unplanned purchase, he accepts a plastic bag. For all his good intentions, he has a balled-up pile of them under his kitchen sink, like the rest of us.

“I’d pick up 50 bags a week instead of 2 or 3 if I wasn’t conscious of it,” said Mr. Thrasher, 31, a freelance writer from Fort Greene, Brooklyn. “You’re always having a plastic bag put in your hand.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced this month that he would push for a 6-cent fee on each plastic bag, both to raise as much as $16 million a year for the city in its economic slump and to steer New Yorkers toward greener practices — switching to bags they can use over and over.

Yet even those who agree with the idea say the weaning from such a symbol of waste could be particularly difficult, if not painful, in a city with New York’s quirks.

In interviews over the past week, many shoppers said the city’s largely carless, minimalist style did not easily lend itself to toting canvas or heavier plastic bags around like another accessory. Many also pointed out that the plastic bag is hardly a throwaway — indispensable, they said, for cleaning up after pets, camouflaging the smell of a dirty diaper, hiding an open can of beer or simply holding other trash.

“I’d have to buy garbage bags, which is more plastic again,” said Ellen Goldstein, 56, a painter and animator who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ms. Goldstein agrees that plastic must ultimately go, and she has plenty of cloth bags in her car. But that is where they remained when she caught a ride with a friend to Fairway Market in Red Hook last week.

So while her friend, Sarah Goldman, 42, a baker from Long Island, filled one side of the trunk with reusable bags reading, “There is only one earth,” Ms. Goldstein self-consciously filled the other with more than a dozen plastic bags fresh from the store.

“I do feel guilty,” she said.

Plastic bags, particularly the flimsy ones that float over windy streets, are widely considered an environmental nuisance that use up petroleum, litter the landscape, clog storm drains and recycling equipment and linger for centuries in landfills.

City officials are still fine-tuning the details of the surcharge: Which kinds of plastic bags would require one? Is 6 cents — 5 for the city and one for the merchant — enough? While Mayor Bloomberg has called the charge a fee that could be approved by the City Council, the city’s top budget official said on Monday that it was a tax and would require approval from the State Legislature.

Several European countries already impose hefty taxes of as much as 33 cents on standard plastic bags. San Francisco has banned them altogether at large grocery stores and pharmacies unless they are biodegradable bags, which are more expensive than regular ones. The news that New York was about to grapple with the issue drew hundreds of comments last week to The New York Times Web site, many of them welcoming the city out of the dark ages.

“How do I clean out my litter box every day?” one New Yorker asked. “What do we use in place of plastic bags? I am serious!”

John of Phoenix replied: “Simply keep the bag the litter came in and pour the used litter back into it. Problem solved.”

Lydia of New Jersey said she solved a similar problem by sliding a folded newspaper under her dog “when she squats to do her business.”

“Then I simply refold the paper around her droppings and discard the whole thing,” she wrote.

But some New Yorkers are not buying the mayor’s proposal. Eddie Collins, 57, an unemployed truck driver from Brooklyn, said that if the city were serious about protecting the environment, it would allow residents to recycle plastic bags just as it does paper and glass. The city passed a law this year requiring stores that provide plastic bags to accept them back from customers for recycling into new bags, but there is no such program for homes.

Robert Lange, director of the city’s recycling program, said the bags posed a challenge for such large-scale recycling because many are not clean enough to enter the recycling stream and, once there, tend to wrap themselves around other recyclables.

Count Mr. Collins among those willing to pay a tax for plastic. “If I need seven or eight bags, I’m not going to take eight canvas bags with me,” he said flatly.

There are, indeed, logistical issues that may make it impractical for many New Yorkers to bring their own reusable bags along when they shop. Most people walk or take the bus and subway, so they have no car trunk in which to carry a number of them. Because so many purchases are spur of the moment — as easy as spotting a storefront and remembering you need candles or toothpaste — sometimes the backpack, briefcase or humongous handbag that can store them are not handy.

And many people have found at least a second use for the single-use plastic bags. Janice Thomas, 47, a nanny in Brooklyn, said she used them to wrap items for her care packages to relatives in Granada. “You fold the stuff up and put them in the bag for shipping,” she said.

Mr. Thrasher, the Brooklyn man battling the wad of bags under his sink, finds plastic bags ideal for, of all things, composting. He uses them to store food scraps in the freezer, then takes them once a week to his farmers’ market. With a paper bag, he said, “I’d worry it’d rot through.”

On rainy days at Luna Deli, a bodega in East Harlem, some customers demand plastic bags even without a purchase.

“They ask for bags to cover their shoes,” said David Cortes, a store clerk who said he sometimes charges 5 cents per bag in such cases because “the store pays for those bags — they’re not a gift.”

Mr. Cortes said he had a front-row seat to the waste: Customers ask for bags even for cigarettes, and to wrap beer cans “so the police don’t see them drinking.”

“It just creates more trash,” said the clerk, who said he agreed with the proposal.

But customers like Bernadette Ojeda, 37, a mother of six, said charging 6 cents was “not right.”

“It doesn’t make sense to have to carry an empty bag around,” she said of the idea of bringing her own bag. “That’s what the plastic bag is for.”

Environmental groups like Natural Resources Defense Council support the idea of a surcharge, saying the goal is to make people switch to reusable bags and to conserve resources. “If you end up reusing a plastic bag 5 times or 10 times, that could replace 5 or 10 of the flimsy bags that are now used,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer with the council in New York. Whether durable plastic or cotton, the reusable bags are a greener alternative as long as they are, in fact, used and not forgotten in a closet, he said.

But many grocers and retailers oppose the tax, fearing an increased demand for the paper bag, which they point out is more expensive and, because it is bulkier than plastic, requires more space and trucks to deliver. While easily recyclable, paper bags also require killing trees.

Patricia Brodhagen, a spokeswoman for the Food Industry Alliance of New York State, a group that represents grocery store chains like ShopRite and A & P, said the city should give the stores incentive programs — like the nickel that customers get back at some chains if they use their own bags — and the city-mandated recycling program for plastic bags a chance to work. She said it was too early to tell how well that program was doing but “what we’ve seen as a rule in New York State is that the use of reusables has gone up.”

City shoppers already face bans on disposable plastic at stores like Ikea and neighborhood co-op markets.

Ikea started phasing out plastic bags in March 2007 with a 5-cent surcharge per bag. The manager of the Brooklyn store, Mike Baker, said that by the time the bags were eliminated last month, more than 90 percent of customers had either switched to the big blue bags the store sells for 59 cents or decided to load up bag-less, “like Costco.”

“There’s been no riots,” Mr. Baker said.

But the world may have to wait for New York to adjust. Mr. Thrasher, who grew up in California, said the New York mindset is such that he gets looks whenever he goes out to the corner deli for a pint of ice cream and refuses a plastic bag for it.

“People always think it’s weird, but it’s a 40-second walk from the deli to my house.

“If you can carry it to the cash register,” he said, “you can carry it home.”
In Economic Terms, Recycling Almost Pays
NYTIMES
By ANTHONY DEPALMA
Published: May 29, 2008

It still costs more to recycle paper, plastic, metal and glass in New York City than to simply chuck everything into the trash. But the cost difference has narrowed, and if the trend continues, recycling could end up being cheaper than trash disposal within five years, according to an analysis released on Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Recycling costs the city $284 a ton, while curbside trash disposal comes to $267 a ton, according to the analysis, which was prepared for the environmental group by DSM Environmental, an independent consulting firm in Vermont. The $17 per ton difference comes to about 6 percent, and is significantly less than it was a few years ago. When the city’s Independent Budget Office looked at recycling costs in 2004, it found that the city spent $34 to $48 a ton more to recycle than to send garbage to landfills.

“Here is proof positive that recycling is cost-competitive with other waste disposal methods, to say nothing of cutting the city’s contribution to global warming,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer at the environmental group. According to the report, New York’s recycling programs provide the same environmental benefit as taking roughly 338,000 cars off the road each year.

Officials at the Department of Sanitation have long argued that recycling does not necessarily pay for itself. During a fiscal crisis in 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut back the recycling program to save money.

A year later, the administration reluctantly reversed itself and resumed a weekly recycling schedule. Before the disruption, recycling rates reached a high of 20 percent of the waste stream, but fell sharply afterward. They have recovered somewhat but remain lower, about 18 percent. Department officials said that could reflect a change to lighter packaging materials.

The study found that recycling costs more in large part because sanitation crews have to travel farther and spend more time picking up recyclable material than when they are collecting garbage.

Vito A. Turso, a deputy sanitation commissioner, said that a work crew can fill a regular garbage truck with 10 to 12 tons of trash during a seven-hour shift and have time to take the load to a transfer station. But the same crew on recycling duty will pick up only 3 to 5 tons of recyclables, because residents do not put out everything that can be recycled. “There are plenty of other things on the metal, plastic, paper and glass side that can be recycled, and if people were more ambitious about recycling those materials, there would be less in the waste stream.” Mr. Turso said.

Previous analyses of recycling costs have been challenged by either advocates of recycling or city officials because of disputes over the way the Sanitation Department accounts for costs. Lorenzo N. Cipollina, the department’s deputy commissioner for financial management, worked with the DSM consultants as they prepared their analysis. “We have no big disagreement with how they want to look at the numbers,” he said.

The DSM analysis excludes labor costs not explicitly related to picking up recyclables that the department has traditionally included in its calculations about recycling. They include leaf composting, curbside pickup of household appliances and even workers sometimes assigned to snowplowing. Mr. Cipollina said that as the cost of shipping garbage to out-of-state landfills rises, and as the price the city can get for recycled material increases, recycling will make more sense.

“The message here is that every ton of paper not put into the refuse stream yields us 7 to 10 dollars a ton, as opposed to paying a $100 per ton disposal fee on the other end,” he said. “We are in full agreement that recycling at the curb is a good program.”