Recycling and the Recession: How More Waste, Less Money and New Layoffs are Affecting Waste Management

It's an improvement that 33% of America is recycling; unfortunately that’s still a small percentage. I hope there is State and Federal government intervention, in the near future, to shoot for a higher 75% recycling effort. Unfortunately, I’m sad to say, this is too hard and high of a goal for the US to accomplish. The US is struggling to be number one at anything right now. Unfortunately again, right now in the US, war and gay marriage seems to be more important. I think it’s too bad that the US hasn't seen the light yet, perhaps by setting immediate goals for top priority issues first or by perhaps learning from ALL its past mistakes, instead of just repeating mistakes over and over again. It’s unfortunate and I hate to say it, but nothing will get done until it’s too late, just look at the US history. Anyways I do my recycling and I TRY to convince my neighbors but there’s only so much one person with little resources or "money" can do. I can’t change laws nor can I drastically influence the market. The US should have a top ten priority list. Number one, become energy independent, but on that top ten list, should be to significantly increase recycling capabilities, regulations and laws in residential, business and government settings. This sounds like a good focus or goal for the USA to me. Let’s solve, complete our important problems first in this country then we can talk about other issues.

In light of this article and a series of others and national newscasts recently, I would like to highlight how waste disposal is handled in Vienna/Austria, a city with a population of 1.7 Mio.

Roughly 1 mio. tons of waste are incurred there per year.

This includes:

601,000 tons of household and hospital waste, bulk items and street waste (58%)

80,760 tons of inert waste from construction (about 8%),

235,000 tons of recyclable items (about 23%)

113,000 tons of compost (about 11%) and

7,000 tons of hazardous waste (0.7%).

This amounts to approx. 357 kg per person a year, in contrast to 383 kg which the average Canadian produces a year according to your article.

Waste diversion differs from Toronto in the following ways:

In Vienna, recyclable item collection is being done in separate containers, like it used to be here. There are also hazardous waste (e.g. cooking and motor oils, paint, batteries) and recycling depots available to the public. For larger items, pick ups can be scheduled for a nominal fee. Vienna also encourages numerous smaller initiatives to curb garbage, e.g. a "dish washing vehicle" and cup deposits at big events and large receptables at public swimming pools and other outdoor venues. Cleaning crews are picking out any non-recycled items such as plastic bottles and cans from the public regular garbage. This resulted in 100 tons of recyclable waste in 2008 that could be diverted from landfill sites.

Another important factor is that recycled items, e.g. paper, glass, metal go back to companies that reuse them as opposed to shipping them overseas. Hazardous waste goes only to companies that are allowed to deal with such material. Separately collected plastic bottles are going to a plastic sorting company where they are sorted by colour and material for reuse.

Green bin waste is taken to a special composting factory where it is submised to a natural composting process whose end product is either bei

I live in a county that until recently was mainly agricultural based farmland. People had burn barrels and buried the family trash. It's only been in the last 20 years that we have participated in a recycling program and it is very limited. Only 1's and 2's are allowed and even then the people who man our trash sites monitor what goes in and can turn away things that clearly state are in those categories. We even had one man who insisted that the bins were taken directly to the landfill and dumped out, that those of us who were attempting to recycle were "wasting your time". With this economy, I expect to see much more of this as county governments clamp down with budget cuts.

The public should be insistent that local government does its part to support recycling by purchasing products made from recyclables and renewables.

A not insignificant issue related to this is that the product also be made in the USA.