--- --- Page 6 RAIN August/September 1979 CONT. business organitlation, capitalization, grants and so forth . • And then there are the myriad repair shops sprinkled around the community, the free boxes, the quilters, stashers, composters, firewood cutters, house recyclers, junk artists, reuse dreamers-normal materialists with a different passion -people who get into the material before it gets into the solid waste stream, and as such do us all a great service Theirs is the baseline of a larger recycling economy-behavior that needs to be encouraged. Opportunities To Be Had And there you have a feeling for one community's positive responses to our waste dilemma. Not the complete picture by any means, but a strong gauge of the capacity for people to start turning a crisis around in their favor with common sense and good work. What lies ahead will be conditioned by how quickly Effective Recycling Behavior becomes the conventional wisdom-including alternative demonstration systems on line-and how thoroughly the high-tech options are exposed for their inefficiency and inherent dangers. Somewhere in between, public officials and waste planners have a lot to learn-and to change. Current arrangements are set up to frustrate and contain labor-intensive recycling. Mainstream plans, if implemented to completion, will lock up more and more capital and human energies into unprofitable, unworkable "resource recovery" machines that try to get a little electricity or steam hype from mixed wastes prior to "disposal." And don't forget the machines to clean up or compensate for the damages done by the primary processor units-the dectro-static precipitators, sludge dryers, air and water filtration units. All drink lots of energy. Subsidies that allow garbage generators and collectors to make big profits off an energy and economic deficit sector should be ended in favor of source separation to permit recyclables to be marketed at a favorable price. This would defray rapidly rising collection costs and free budgets from the "albatross effect" of waste disposal subsidies going to garbage "interests." Small-scale recycling can thus be encouraged, capitalized, liberated. It would help, too, if' we would view action in this sector as a type of production. Materials saved are materials earned; that is, they are a potential feedstock for a potential production system. Direct sale for reuse is only one of the possibilities for marketing recovered materials. Materials may also be used directly in the production of entirely new goods, adding value and justifying a greater reward for imagination, creativity and work. As it stands, our system is organized to waste these materials and opportunities. But they are there to be had. Comprehensive Neighborhood-Based Recycling: An Outline It is such opportunities that myself and several others had in mind when we came together for a brainstorming session on neighborhood-based recycling systems not long ago. Our task was to plan a work program to get down to mobilizmg Effective Recycling Behavior for an entire urban neighborhood, including the business and commercial sectors. People present RESOURCES ----~- We wouldn't want to leave you without any place to go for further information in following up this article, so here are some of the reports and resources that have come to our attention recently. For another excellent overview go back and read Denis Hayes' Repairs, Reuse and Recycling (RAIN, Nov. '78), which seems to be highly recommended by the people that know. For those ofyou wishing to correspond with Dan Knapp, he can be reached at Oregon Appropriate Technology, P.O. Box 1525, Eugene, Oregon 97440. -SA Garbage-to-Energy, The False Panacea, by Santa Rosa Recycling Center, $3.00 from: Santa Rosa Recycling Cen rer P.O. Box 1375 Santa Rosa, CA 95401 A detailed complement to our July installment on garbage high-tech, The False Panacea comes on strong, contending that garbage-to-energy strategies are being pushed onto line before environmentally and economically more appropriate technologies (reduction, reuse and re'cycling of wastes) have been given a chance to prove themselves. Burning garbage for energy, in fact, will most likely curtail further efforts to implement more effective solid waSfe practises and actually reduce the incentives to decrease our already staggering generation of solid wastes. The report is rich iOn facts: • Because garbage conversion plants . require guaranteed supplies of waste, municipalities hosting them are contractually subject to penalties for not delivering their garbage quota, and to contract renegotiation if a change in the composition of their trash occurs. Plant promoters are known to lobby against source-reduction legislation such as bottle bills in order to protect their fuel sources and profits. • The six burn plants proposed in California will employ 30-50 workers each at an average capital investment of $1. 8 million per job. Source-separation collection and processing systems, on the other hand, can support one job for every $10,000 in capital investment. • Ash residues from plants which burn refuse derived fuels are considered Class I hazardous wastes in California, and must be trucked to special landfills which control leachate ... Undersco~ing all this, Panacea says, the "production" of energy by burn plants is deceptive, because more energy can be saved at lower cost by waste reduction and source separation. Institutional factors and industrial vested interests, on the other hand, are whai: is hampering the reuse of currently wasted materials. A strong commitment by municipalities to recycling, waste reduction and source separation can force changes in government policies - depletion allowances, discriminatory freight rates, etc. - that continue to undermine healthy markets for the secondary materials a recycling economy would produce. Very good research from Tania Lipshutz and her associates. Resource Recovery Report for Kent County Michigan: Executive Summary, by Institute for Local Self-Reliance, February, 1979, Institute for Local SelfReliance 1717 18th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20009 This report looks like a "first" and should be picked upon by localities serious about considering the potential for solid-waste recycling on a community-wide scale. Commissioned by Kent County (Grand Rapids), Michigan, staff members of the Institute for Local Self Reliance have developed two variations on a comprehensive recycling system for that area, based on extensive work with the community and its principal actors in solid waste. Their report cites some special advantages in Kent County, including a generally receptive attitude toward recycling and a favorable balance of power among public and private interests, with no single authority dictating the terms of solid waste collection and disposal. In addition, the state of Michigan is notable for the recognition it gives to source separation in its laws and policies. After considering several
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