S.W. 1st and Stark looking south. Recycling Garbage is not something you throw away. There is no such place as away. Disposal is a myth. When you dispose of something it goes someplace—a wastebasket, a toilet, a dropbox, a sewer line, a landfill, even an incinerator. It is moved from one place to another, maybe changed to another form, but it still exists. Applying the current $27 per ton collection and disposal costs to our present volume, the annual national cost for solid waste management is about $7.8 billion. If the 1985 projected costs of $50 per ton hold true, the fiscal impact of waste management on local government will be devastating. Portland's collection and disposal figures, currently slightly less than national at $23 per ton, nonetheless show the same potential impact. Current economics in this country necessitate that waste reduction receive attention. Surveys in Oregon, Washington, and California have shown that upwards of 75 percent of their citizens are in favor of recycling programs. Rising costs of raw materials and their growing scarcity speak to the importance of conservation practices, which have their precedents deeply rooted in our past. In the 1890s the United States was transforming from a rural-agricultural to an urban-industrial society, and the quality of life in the rapidly expanding population centers was fouled by accumulations of garbage piled everywhere in city streets. One of the earliest organized groups in this country to recognize the need for recycling was the Salvation Army, whose initial resource recovery activities centered in New York City in the 1890s. Another pioneer recycling program began in New York in 1896, initiated by Col. George E. Waring Jr., a prominent 19th century sanitary engineer. He began a system of primary separation which required householders to store organic wastes, paper, ashes, and other light rubbish in separate containers for collection. | As early as 1905, a Portland city j ordinance dealt with the accumulation in city streets of "garbage, refuse vegetable ! matter, or filth of any kind . . .", and in 1910, a general ordinance of the city of Portland mandated the same type of source separation pioneered in New York City. (Garbage—Not to be Mixed.) Section 42. It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to mix or place in the same vessel or receptacle, tin cans, glass, crockery, or any other material or ashes, with \ any swill, vegetable or animal matter or other filth or garbage intended for delivery to scavengers for the purpose of being hauled or carted away from any house or ' premises within the limits of the ■ city, [and]. . . when so hauled or carted away from any premises in the city, be kept entirely separate from all other substances, and shall be so kept when the same shall be dumped or unloaded. 62 Oregon Historical Society
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