Municipal Recycling

REPORT PROFILES CANADIAN CONTAINER RECYCLING

The Container Recycling Institute (CRI), Arlington, Va., has produced a 50-page report detailing the status of beverage container recycling in Canada.

According to the report’s executive, only Ontario among Canada’s ten provinces and two territories does not have a comprehensive beverage producer responsibility law on the books. Most provinces have a return-to-depot deposit system, while a couple have return-to-retail systems.

Most of these producer responsibility laws are of recent vintage, according to the CRI, with seven provinces enacting them between 1992 and 1998. In 1998, for example, Quebec moved to require beverage producers to take responsibility for funding that province’s curbside recycling system.

A noteworthy difference between the Canadian and U.S. beverage container markets is the continued widespread presence of refillable bottles in Canada. According to the CRI report, 80% of the single-serving size beer containers sold in Canada are refillable bottles.

There are provincial laws encouraging the use of refill-ables, such as a per unit tax on non-refillable bottles and cans in Saskatchewan and an outright ban on non-refillable containers on Prince Edward Island.

For more information or to order the report, CRI can be reached through their website at www.igc.apc.org/cri/ .

PAPER RECYCLING: THE ACCESS IS THERE

Any woes in the paper recycling market should not be due to inadequate collection of material, if figures released by the American Forest & Paper Association, Washington, are accurate.

The survey, conducted by R.W. Beck & Associates, concluded that 226 million Americans—84%—have access to recycling paper and paperboard. Access is defined as a curbside program or a drop-off site within a few miles of community residents.

Of the more than 20,000 communities responding to the survey, more than 9,000 have curbside collection programs and more than 16,000 have drop-off programs. More attention is also being paid to collection at multi-unit apartment buildings, with 15% of the communities making efforts in that area.

Even though much of 1998 was a tough year for paper on the pricing side, several communities nonetheless added paper grades to their residential collection programs, including such grades as telephone directories, paper bags, paperboard, and office paper.

EPA RELEASES WASTEWISE PROGRESS REPORT

Recycling is playing a key role in helping several hundred businesses and institutions reduce the amount of municipal solid waste they generate. That’s the word from the WasteWise partnership program established by the U.S. EPA in its most recent progress report.

Some 830 businesses or institutions have forged a voluntary partnership with the EPA to reduce their solid waste streams. The WasteWise partners combined to recycle more than 6.8 million tons of materials (primarily aluminum, paper, glass and steel) in 1997, up 43% over 1996. The EPA estimates that recycling saved the companies more than $215 million in waste disposal fees.

The program also has a “Buy Recycled” component, through which the EPA WasteWise partners bought nearly $3 billion worth of recycled-content products.

ARIZONA AWARDS TOP RECYCLERS

Arizona Clean & Beautiful, Phoenix, has presented its Governor’s Pride Awards, which include five in the recycling category.

The City of King-man was awarded for establishing its drop-off recycling program, which has created an affordable way to collect ONP, OCC, plastic containers, aluminum UBCs and steel cans.

The Salt River Landfill in Scottsdale, Ariz. was awarded for its Green Waste Recovery Program. Through the program, tree trimmings, grass and wood waste are processed into mulch.

The City of Scottsdale also cooperated with Motorola to organize a two-day event to recover household hazardous waste materials.

The “Tools for Schools” program in Tucson, Ariz. Was awarded for its ability to supply children in Latin America with recycled paper, pens and pencils.

In Yuma, city employees reclaim the sand that is picked up by street sweepers, recycling more than 4,600 tons of the material annually. The sand is used as fill in projects where it is needed, rather than being dumped into the local landfill.

KENTUCKY STUDENTS PUSH FOR BOTTLE BILL

While few new bottle bills have been passed in U.S. states for the last several years, a bill introduced in the Kentucky legislature is drawing some attention.

House Bill 371 was introduced by Representative Greg Stumbo in 1998 at the urging of an alliance of high school students from throughout the state. The bill is being studied in a committee, which could mean its chances of going to a full vote as initially proposed are uncertain.

The National Soft Drink Association questions the effects of the bill on the state’s existing container recycling infrastructure, and is also generally opposed to such bills due to the added cost they add to per unit sales. According to the Container Recycling Institute, Arlington, Va., a group of bottlers and grocers has lobbied against the bottle bill as a tax on consumers.

But some Kentuckians have been unswayed by the lobbyists’ position. The Lexington Herald-Leader called some of the testimony made by the lobbyists false, and added that the bill could lead to “a cleaner landscape, the extended life of landfills and the recycling of finite resources.”