Everyone,
I heard about the rolling recycle carts some time ago and am looking
forward to having one. A rolling cart will be much easier to get to the
curb than lugging the bin full of papers, plastic bottles cans, etc. - at
my age that is a challenge my back and I do not enjoy. Currently it is
wasteful to have a recycle truck come every week if some people do little
recycling. Once every two weeks to empty a bin makes more sense. As
for the size of the recycle cart, there are options, just like those for our
garbage carts. Remember, before the City started a recycling program, we
had to take our recyclables to a few designated sites throughout the city - just
as we do now with telephone books. At future SWCAC meetings and
in our newsletter, I will be begging folks to recycle even more when they get
their rolling carts..
My biggest frustration is that people do not recycle every item they can -
that's what being "green" is about. I was lucky - my mother taught me to
recycle as a child many, many, many years ago. If people had
lived in Raleigh long enough, they would remember the City's challenge to
find enough land to expand our "garbage mountain." The
more stuff people can recycle, the less land Raleigh will have to buy for a
garbage dump when the present dump is full or if they cannot find land, the
garbage will have to be shipped somewhere away from here at a much greater
expense. Do not forget some items that should be recycled are toxic to our
water supplies. Recycling saves additional expenses of purifying our
drinking water, too.
Leaving to our children and other family members land that is as green
as possible will be just as important as leaving them our home and
money. Please make a positive adjustment to this bin-to-cart change.
Thanks for reading my email. I do not want to step on people's toes,
but I so strongly believe in recycling.
Mary Belle Pate
I was
surprised and disappointed to see in the paper today that Raleigh
will be
using big new plastic recycling containers and decreasing the
number of
city employees (no layoffs, but a net loss of jobs).
We had a
presentation about recycling at a recent Glenwood CAC meeting,
but I don't
recall any mention of this new plan. I took a
survey that a friend
forwarded to me, but otherwise didn't know about
the upcoming changes until
seeing the article today. The survey
mentioned a tax increase to pay for
the new program, but the article
today didn't mention one.
Was the
RCAC informed of this change? I know the people in the recycling
department work hard and have great intentions, but I would have liked
to have a more public discussion of the pros and cons of this program
before seeing it approved, including RCAC notification.
For
example:
* What is the environmental impact of throwing away the bins we
already
have and buying new ones?
* Where will the new ones come from?
A Raleigh firm would be good, a
Chinese firm would be very bad.
* Is it
a good use of tax money to replace jobs with big plastic bins
and fancy
trucks?
* Should we be striving to increase the volume of material recycled
or
to decrease the amount of overall waste?
Sincerely
yours,
Linda Watson
Glenwood CAC
chair
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