RE: [greenyes] FW: [MassRecycle] New York City recommits to recycling!

["Eric Lombardi" <eric@no.address>]

Helen,

You say...
* "There's a flaw in the reasoning here."
* "I ask this GREENYES list -- you, who are supposed to be the 21st 
Century thinkers about waste!"
* "I'm bitterly disappointed in Bloomberg -- and in the American
public..."

It's so easy to be negative.  Perhaps you could share with us your
positive suggestions and solutions?  Of course, we all agree that
producers need to be held responsible for their waste (somehow) and that
DFE is the key step forward.  So let's not stop there... let's hear some
real "how to's" on the path to your vision.  

Meanwhile, I live in a world that when NY dropped recycling many
anti-recyclers around the world used that as "proof" that anything other
than modern landfilling or waste-to-energy was a fantasy.  You see,
perception is reality, and NY is viewed by many on the planet as an
important urban center.  So, while it's not perfect, I'm glad that NY is
going public that recycling is a more economic approach than
landfilling!  Those of us fighting the good fight must celebrate our
small victories, or else we get burned out, overwhelmed by the scale of
the problems, and ultimately cynical and negative... and that just sucks
away our energy.  No thank you.

Eric 


-----Original Message-----
From: Helen Spiegelman [mailto:hspie@no.address] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:20 PM
To: Jenny Gitlitz; greenyes
Cc: Pat Franklin
Subject: Re: [greenyes] FW: [MassRecycle] New York City recommits to
recycling!

There's a flaw in the reasoning here.

One cannot infer that the city is going to get "amazing returns" on
metal, 
glass and plastic (not to mention all the other products in which they
are 
inextricably commingled) and that these materials will perform "the way 
paper did" just because they are hauled in city sanitation trucks to one

place to be mechanically separated.

Where, I ask this GREENYES list -- you, who are supposed to be the 21st 
Century thinkers about waste! -- is the incentive for producers to
design 
better products?

What Mayor Bloomberg has done, with all of you cheering him on, is let
the 
producers of all those throwaway products off the hook for a good, long
time.

Here in Canada, the city of Toronto is facing an even more embarrassing 
quandary than New York. Their trash is being exported across the border
to 
Michigan (Kerry is even trying to make it an election issue). Toronto's 
response has been to pressure for a provincial law that will at least
get a 
little chump-change to help cities cover recycling costs. And while
they're 
waiting for industry to put their money on the table, the cities are 
investing their millions in COMPOSTING PLANTS for the food waste, yard 
waste and contaminated paper that is belching GHG into the atmosphere.

I'm bitterly disappointed in Bloomberg -- and in the American public for

not helping him get a better final grade in Waste Management 101 (""The 
mayor might have given himself an F on the trash issue not long ago,"
Mr. 
Izeman said, "But in striking this deal, he just turned in an A paper.")

Helen.




>It will likely drop even further, perhaps to around $20 per ton, as
Hugo Neu
>picks up a larger share of the more lucrative paper market, which is
part of
>the terms of the contract, he said.

(snip)


"With this contract, the city does for metal, glass and plastic what it
did
for paper nearly 10 years ago," said Councilman Michael E. McMahon, a
Staten
Island Democrat and chairman of the Council's waste management
committee.

>In 1997, the city offered a 20-year contract for 50 percent of the
city's
>paper recycling, and Visy Industries, an Australian recycling company,
>stepped forward to build a $250 million processing plant on Staten
Island.
>
>"That contract gave paper recycling a permanent home, it attracted the
>needed investment to build permanent infrastructure and now the city
gets
>amazing returns on it," Mr. McMahon said. "This contract holds the same
>basic promise."