Today's Topics:
PET at Wal-Mart - in bottle bill states -Reply
PETE
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Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 14:10:40 -0400
From: WOODY GETZ <WGETZ@FRE.FSU.UMD.EDU>
Subject: PET at Wal-Mart - in bottle bill states -Reply
George:
I'm not sure I can immediately agreed with your conclusions. My
comments are given below:
Happy Holidays!
Reduce/ReUse/Recycle/Compost - It's good for the economy!
Woody Getz
Sierra Club, Western Maryland Group/Maryland Chapter
Environmental Rep, Allegany County(MD) Solid Waste Management Board
CRoWD (Coalition for Responsible Waste Disposal)
FAR (Frostburg Area Recyclers)
Member, Allegany County Solid Waste Management Plan Committees,
1991-92 & 1995-96
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George Dreckmann wrote:
>
> The problem you mention is a sure sign that the PETE situation has
> seriously deteriorating. When a company that has long pushed
> recycling, such as Wal-Mart is forced to dump PETE and risk the
> negative publicity associated with such dumping, it underscores the
> fact that it is becoming more and more difficult to move PETE on the >
reycling markets.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'd like to wait and see if Wal-Marts in other locales are doing the
same. After all, with one "siting" couldn't this be a decision based on
local economics rather than a representation of a national situation.
I'm anxious to see if we get more PET dumping sitings at Wal-Mart as
well as other national/regional chain stores.
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>
> Recycling programs can sit back and wait for the problem to hit them
> and risk the wrath of their customers (and rest assured that we will > get
a lot of blame, not the plastic folks) or we can try to head
> things off by telling our customers to stop buying PETE.
>
> Okay, so I sound like a broken record. But, I really think that we
> have to do something now or start renting storage space for all of
> our PETE bales.
>
> Pax,
>
> George
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Case in point.
Currently Allegany County, MD manages all the public sector recycling
via drop box sites, a compost site, and a centralized drop off for
selected items. There are no municipal level recycling programs.
We are a rather rural county several hours from many markets (other
than the new First Urban Fiber plant, in the Maryland county just East
of us, which apparently found it better to get contracts from Canada!
First Urban recycles office paper).
We still find it cost prohibitive to recycle plastics especially given
the relatively low response for recycling ONP, clear glass, mixed color
glass, and food/beverage cans.
So we do rent a storage space for plastic and other discards -
Mountainview Landfill - the only privately owned and operated landfill
in the state of Maryland!
Finally, considering that most plastic recycling is not closed loop
(whereas a glass jar can be recycled as glass jar) don't we need to be
concerned with how many plastic benches and sign posts we need/can use?
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Date: 21 Dec 96 16:06:34 EST
From: Myra Nissen <76275.1032@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: PETE
I am sorry for popping in on the conversation. I don't have a strong position.
But, I do feel asking questions of those who might know answers is the step
before
criticism and reactions.
Has any one asked for a comment from NAPCOR on these issues?
If you need a contact name, I can get one for you.
My
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End of GreenYes Digest V96 #56
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