By Ollie & Gloria Maier
Daily Record Columnists
August 16, 2008 03:56 pm
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An article in a recent Recycling Today and a similar article in the San Antonio Express-News caught our eye as it mentioned San Antonio "... soon will have one of the largest processing centers in North America."
"Greenstar North America has announced several moves in its Texas operations, which the company feels will help boost the company’s business in the Lone Star State."
"To accomplish this, the company is renaming at of its Vista Fibers operations in Texas. Vista Fibers was acquired, as well as its parent company Mid America, last October. Through the partnership Greenstar operates significant recycling operations in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio."
There has been a significant increase in recycling rates (200 percent in San Antonio and 300 percent in Dallas) due to a "... move toward a single stream collection program, as well as the use of a 95-gallon recycling cart, compared to a smaller 18-gallon cart used by San Antonio and blue bags used by Dallas."
In San Antonio, the company is building a large new facility (180,000 square foot on nine acres "... capable of processing 20,000 tons per month of recyclables") because San Antonio "... has the largest recycling program in the State and will serve as an excellent hub to collect materials from key regions across Texas."
This new facility "... is scheduled to open in first quarter of next year, and will accept single stream material from recycling programs throughout central and south Texas."
Additionally, "The company also recently signed an agreement with the city of Austin to provide single stream recycling. The program is expected to begin this coming October."
While on the subject of recycling in Texas, in the San Antonio Express-News, on page 2 they normal run a small column called 'By the numbers' in which they list the top ten of various items.
Recently, it was the top 10 municipal recyclers. We were surprised to see San Francisco lead the list with at recycling rate of 69 percent.
Number 5 was Chicago with a 55.4 percent rate and number 10 was New York with a 34 percent rate. We were surprised that Austin, which has won national awards for their recycling programs, was not in the top 10. Since this particular column also published what some of the Texas cities were doing, we found Austin at number 12 with a 27.3 percent recycling rate. Dallas was 23rd with a 11.5 percent recycling rate. San Antonio was number 28 with a recycling rate of 4 percent and Houston was number 30 with a 2.6 percent recycling rate.
We don't know how the local area would have done in this ranking, but we are very sure it would have been better than Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston... probably up there with Austin. One look at everything being recycled at the drop-off sites and through curb-side leads us to believe this. Keep up the good work.
Till next week, do have a great one...
Gloria and Ollie are local citizens concerned with the environment and helping others. For questions or comments, please call them at 353-7432 or e-mail omaier@TxState.edu
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