Nanny State In Your Garbage Can And Wallet
High-tech carts will tell on Cleveland residents who don't recycle ... and they face $100 fine
"CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't. The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.
The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn't been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.
Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.
City Council on Wednesday approved spending $2.5 million on high-tech carts for 25,000 households across the city, expanding a pilot program that began in 2007 with 15,000 households."
Plastic Seduction
"Let's be clear here, because sloppy language breeds sloppy thinking, and both are used for political manipulation. To "recycle" means to make a bottle from a bottle, paper from paper.This is never done with plastic. A plastic bottle is not remade brio a bottle. At best, it is "reused" for another purpose. But even that reuse is extremely limited because every time plastic is melted down, its molecular composition changes, its quality degrades, and the range of its usefulness shrinks. The plastic soda bottle you leave for curbside recycling tray be shredded and used for sleeping bag insulation or carpet fibers, but after that it's headed for a landfill.
That's why Berkeley's Ecology Center, the pioneer of urban recycling, does not accept plastic in its curbside collection program. Americans were starting to get hip to the petroleum by-product's anti-environmental qualities, the Ecology Center's information coordinator, Karen Pickett, told me. So a few years ago the industry began spending millions of dollars ($20 million per year according to the industry trade group, the American Plastics Council) on commercials telling us plastic is now recyclable.
"People want to do the tight thing, so the way for the industry to get them to use plastic containers instead of metal or glass is to convince them it's recyclable," Pickett said. Unchallenged, the propaganda is working. Go to your local store and try to find a glass soda bottle today.
So where does all that plastic you leave on your curbside go? The three companies that collect it in Oakland sell the stuff to brokers - at a sizable loss. Neil Cutler, a spokesperson for Karl's Recycling and Pacific Rim, told me his firm gets about $1,000 a ton for the highest-quality stuff like soda bottles, but that half those dollars come from the deposit you pay on the bottle at the store. The other kinds of plastics bring about $25 a ton. Cutler estimated that the cost of collecting and sorting plastic ranges from $1,000 to $3,000 a ton, with the difference made up by the recycling fee on your garbage bill. So you're paying twice for the industry to continue making millions and junking up the planet."
"CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't. The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.
The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn't been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.
Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.
City Council on Wednesday approved spending $2.5 million on high-tech carts for 25,000 households across the city, expanding a pilot program that began in 2007 with 15,000 households."
Plastic Seduction
"Let's be clear here, because sloppy language breeds sloppy thinking, and both are used for political manipulation. To "recycle" means to make a bottle from a bottle, paper from paper.This is never done with plastic. A plastic bottle is not remade brio a bottle. At best, it is "reused" for another purpose. But even that reuse is extremely limited because every time plastic is melted down, its molecular composition changes, its quality degrades, and the range of its usefulness shrinks. The plastic soda bottle you leave for curbside recycling tray be shredded and used for sleeping bag insulation or carpet fibers, but after that it's headed for a landfill.
That's why Berkeley's Ecology Center, the pioneer of urban recycling, does not accept plastic in its curbside collection program. Americans were starting to get hip to the petroleum by-product's anti-environmental qualities, the Ecology Center's information coordinator, Karen Pickett, told me. So a few years ago the industry began spending millions of dollars ($20 million per year according to the industry trade group, the American Plastics Council) on commercials telling us plastic is now recyclable.
"People want to do the tight thing, so the way for the industry to get them to use plastic containers instead of metal or glass is to convince them it's recyclable," Pickett said. Unchallenged, the propaganda is working. Go to your local store and try to find a glass soda bottle today.
So where does all that plastic you leave on your curbside go? The three companies that collect it in Oakland sell the stuff to brokers - at a sizable loss. Neil Cutler, a spokesperson for Karl's Recycling and Pacific Rim, told me his firm gets about $1,000 a ton for the highest-quality stuff like soda bottles, but that half those dollars come from the deposit you pay on the bottle at the store. The other kinds of plastics bring about $25 a ton. Cutler estimated that the cost of collecting and sorting plastic ranges from $1,000 to $3,000 a ton, with the difference made up by the recycling fee on your garbage bill. So you're paying twice for the industry to continue making millions and junking up the planet."
posted by nolocontendere at 5:09 PM
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