Radio Smart Talk for Monday, April 25:
A new report from Widener Law School's Environmental Law Center offers a blueprint, of sorts, for the future of recycling efforts in Pennsylvania.
The "Next Generation Recycling and Waste Reduction" report comes from the center's director, Professor John Dernbach, and his students. It calls Pennsylvania's current recycling program "rudderless and drifting" but offers recommendations to expand the practice in an effort to create jobs and spur the Commonwealth's economy.
We'll talk with Professor Dernbach, and attorney Elizabeth Marx, one of his former students, on Monday's Radio Smart Talk.
LISTEN TO PROGRAM:
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How can we press education for more recycling and less trash through 1. require more recylcable packaging, 2. composting by pulling from the trash stream, 3. reduction of packaging by manufacturers.
This is perfect example of how the single hauler system does NOT work for everyone. One improvement that could be made with the single hauler system would be to charge per trashbag. This would encourage recycling by forcing those who waste and don't recycle to pay more.
www.lancastercreativereuse.org/
I used to volunteer at the Mennonite Central Committee Material Resource Center. This is located on Trout Run Rd in Ephrata, PA. They take upholstery fabric to make fabric tote bags that are sold to provide fund for relief projects of MCC in developing countries.
They take lots of other fabrics and other materials for recycling: jeans and cordoroy to be made into rugs; fabric for quilts and comforters; paper, cardboard and cereal box board,etc. Here is the the contact information to arrange a drop off time:
517 West Trout Run Road
Ephrata, PA 17522-9600
(717) 733-2847
Metals-Gather your needles and Pins in large container & take it to a commercial recycling place. Swope's Recycing is just short of 10 miles South on Dillsburg on Rt. 194. You save the landfills while putting some cash back in your pocket.
GLASS & aluminum cans- take it Adams Rescue Mission on Rt. 30 in Gettysburg. You keep it out of the landfill and the men staying at the mission have a job while the Mission (ARM) earns much needed funds.
ADAMS Rescue Mission also takes magazines, newspaper, shredded paper, phone books, glass, cardbox to include cereal boxes etc. (flatten the cardboard so it can be bundled.
In the movie "Serial Mom" one of the Serial Mom's murder victims is a neighbor who she murdered for not recycling. That example could be a motivation for people to recycle.
When we have dinner at friends who don't recycle, we take the empty bottle and cans that we emptied during the evening home. with us so we can recycle them.
I take all our trash to the York County incinerator which costs about $50 per year. We don't have the unsightly trash cans and bags sitting by the road like our neighbors. At the incinerator there is a recycling center across the road so the recycling goes when the trash goes. Our trash is separated into recycling, vegtable compost, and trash. Nothing in the trash will smell so it can be stored until there is enough for an incinerator run. The table scraps go to the chickens
Schools still fail to put recycling cans on sports fields for all those sports drinks bottles. Can they be compelled to do so? I live next to many soccer fields with wind blowing them all my way.
My point is this: all of the macro-economic arguments are fine, but society really must look at its attitudes about people. We trash ourselves.
On another topic, the township has disbanded the recyling committee due to declining state funding, and a problem getting new members. I feel this is linked to the languishing of the state's recycling program and failure to educate and revise goals.
On another topic, the township has disbanded the recyling committee due to declining state funding, and a problem getting new members. I feel this is linked to the languishing of the state's recycling program and failure to educate and revise goals.
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