Published: September 27, 2008 01:46 pm            

A Word About Recycling - September 28, 2008

None of us like the high cost of fuel nor the fact that much of this money is going out of this country. The use of biofuels is helping but the corn much of it is made from could be used for food and feedstock for our meat producing animals instead.

Thus a long article on another source of biofuel in the most recent Recycling Today e-newsletter, was quite interesting. Too long to put here, we’ll just mention a couple of items it expressed.

“A number of pulp and paper companies are known to be teaming with companies in the oil industry to develop biofuels capability.”

For example, “Weyerhauser, Federal Way, Wash., has recently announced its plans to team with Chevron to develop proprietary processes for producing second-generation advanced biofuels using cellulosic biomass obtained from the company’s vast forest holdings.”

Another lumber company, “Georgia Pacific, based in Atlanta, is also known to be actively working to build second-generation biofuels capability.“

These companies, and others are working with the oil companies to jointly fund these projects, for “Clearly, petroleum products refiners have the attributes for becoming ‘affinity investors’ in cellulosic ethanol plant joint ventures.”

These oil companies, “... are all looking for reliable sources of ethanol at stable prices. They are always seeking investment opportunities that offer high rates of return and shared risk.”

(Let’s hope these ventures are all successful.)

Locally, we were impressed again with the amount our concerned citizens have recycled through the Green Guy Recycling Services drop-off site last month (August), especially in the scrap metal category (includes iron, steel, tin, copper, aluminum, etc).

Metals  = 1,708,020 pounds

Paper = 98,420 pounds

Cardboard = 87,990 pounds

Glass = 22,351 pounds

Plastic = 6,944 pounds

For a total of almost 2 million pounds in the month. This does not include the 568 gallons of waste oil, approximately 200 used oil filters nor the tires, batteries, and printer cartridges. It also does not include the reusable items sold (at a very reasonable price for you... Like some angle iron we just bought).

Now a somewhat personal item. A reader (and friend) of this column mentioned he thought all plastic bags ought to be banned and we should push for this in these columns. However, we do not try to tell any business how to operate but only try to encourage them and all others to recycle. (For many businesses, it’s often less expensive to recycle than putting it in the trash dumpster.)

We also encourage the use of reusable bags when shopping. And I (Ollie) have found one way to help remember to take them in the store. By using them beforehand to put all the plastic bags collected from newspaper sleeves, grocery items (we often use a plastic bag inside the reusable bag for ice cream, milk, frozen foods, or anything that sweats), etc., I can easily recycle those plastic bags in the container for them at the store.

Till next week, do have a good one (and please let the Good Lord know we could use some rain)...



Gloria and Ollie are local citizens concerned with the environment and helping others. Ollie is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and they both received higher education at TxState University and worked on staff before retiring. For questions or comments, please call them at (512) 353-7432 or e-mail them to omaier@TxState.edu

        

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