>>Environmental reasons alone should get our attention. For despite
what we might like to think about them, landfillls are not a safe,
long-term solution (the new designs only delay, not prevent,
groundwater contamination). Additionally, remanufacturing using
recovered materials reduces the large environmental impacts and
energy usage of extracting and manufacturing using virgin materials.
The incredible popularity of recycling attests to the fact that most
of us are beginning to understand the undesirability of continuing to
waste at current rates (twice that of other industrialized
countries).
But there are also compelling economic reasons for investing in recycling.
Recycling and remanufacturing create local economic development, potentially
large added value, and ten times as many net jobs as burying garbage. And when
given a chance to compete on a level playing field, reuse, recycling and
composting can provide far better disposal service than wasting at a
fraction of
the cost. True conservatives want to invest in materials recovery, jobs and
value-added manufacturing, rather than in dead-end wasting.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: 2_LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Author: Ross Vincent
Date: 6/2/96 3:44 PM
Bill --
Good stuff! QUERY: Seems like we're saying no more subsidies for waste
disposal; let's subsidize recycling instead. What is the "objective"
rationale for that approach -- if it is what this says? If we can't
explain, then this position will probably be seen in DC as just another "do
it my way instead of theirs", "give me the money instead of them" argument.
Ross
----------------
MESSAGE NO. 2
LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD
- SUBSIDIZE RECOVERY NOT WASTING
Draft, May 16th, 1996
For discussion at Grassroots Recycling Agenda Meeting, June 16th