A few ways to encourage recycling
I wholeheartedly agree with letter writer Louana George (“Switch trash, recycling bin sizes, pickup days,” July 12).
We moved to Colorado two years ago from the Chicago area, and we were disappointed in the level of participation in recycling both in our neighborhood and at our places of work.
In Castle Rock, as in Denver, recycling pickup is only every other week, and huge bins are provided for regular garbage.
Residents in Castle Rock have to purchase their own containers if they want to recycle. Consequently, very few homes in our neighborhood put out any recycling; I would guess the participation rate is about 10 percent at best. Back in Illinois, recycling is far more accepted as part of the weekly routine. Most families would recycle at least as much volume of material as was thrown out in their garbage.
If the bin sizes and collection schedules were switched, I bet all of us would be more diligent about our recycling efforts.
Mark McCullough, Castle Rock
I guess you will be moving back to chicago to fell better arout your recycling of all of your trash. If you have enough trash every week to fill a larger container such as your trash one the maybe you should look at all of the items you buy in plastic and aluminum, and paper as that is what is being recycled now.
I wouldnt be surprised if recycled products and the process really add to globial warming with all the energy it takes to do it.
Why not put a consumption tax on bottled water, say $1.00 per bottle? Literally tens of millions of petroleum-based plastic water bottles are disgarded daily and just maybe the tax would slow this major source of pollution and energy consumprtion down.
I don't see any plain old water taps littering the streets, highways, parks, beaches, roads and campgrounds of America. Have we forgotten how to use a water tap?
P.S.
Does anyone really read a newspaper any more? How about a tax on that major source of pollution? And just think of all the trees that will thank us.
Posted by hank on July 19, 2007 08:19 AMHow about saving the planet with a beef tax, a burger tax, a hot-dog tax and a pastrami on rye tax?
As Reuters reported today, "Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, as was determined by Japanese scientists in order to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef."
"Taking into account all the scientific processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide."
Posted by hank on July 19, 2007 09:51 AMThe first posting actually seems to be someone NOT in favor of recycling. What can you buy nowadays that isn't in a recyclable container? Like I'm going to change the consumer products packaging world to stop them from using plastic-paper-aluminum. Given what we have to deal with, I just feel that not enough people make an effort to recycle their materials. And the local municipalities aren't any help. Are you some kind of expert in the methods & techniques used in converting these materials that you think it actually ADDS to global warming? I guess you feel that you have plentiful space for landfills and just don't care about filling them up.
Posted by Mark on July 19, 2007 10:37 AManything that is in glass or steel cans, are a few examples of non recycable products.
yes the recycle process adds to global warming as the products are returned to the original state they were made from and that does not happen by good feelings.
how about we outlaw disposable diapers and go back to the recycle ones called cloth?
and once again its the government who should do mre for it.
BTW we recycle as much as we can, but with all of the trucks driving around to pick up the stuff on special days, sounds a bit funny for recycled stuff as it takes a lot of energy to do so and the driving causes global warming per algore, or maybe not as it is a recycle truck doing the driving.
I would encourage you to learn more about recycling and all these misconceptions you seem to have by visiting these web sites; www.colorado-recycles.org and www.coloradocurbside.com .
Also, the city of Denver does indeed include glass and steel cans as part of their program. The details are at www.denvergov.org and click on "Trash & Recycling". You would be hard pressed to find packaging materials anymore that cannot be recycled.
I do not work in the recycling industry, just an avid believer in the concept. We don't need to load up the beautiful Colorado countryside with any more landfills than necessary.
Posted by Mark on July 19, 2007 01:19 PM