A Word About Recycling
Today’s column is going to be a little different. When I went to the Resource Recycling newsletter (I often use them for stories) to see what stories they had that I might use one as a basis for this column, I was confronted with several, each of which would make a good column. Not being able to choose which one would be best, I decided to just publish the headline of the story with a small opening of it and show what was available for anyone interested in it.
The first story was headlined, “Idled mill may be restarted to produce recycled packaging.” Its opening sentence was, “Plans are in the early stages to reopen a shuttered Washington state newsprint mill and convert it for packaging production using recycled fiber.”
The next was a question concerning government versus private industry. It was titled, “Maine Environmental Pprotection Recycling bills differ on producer control.” Its opening sentence was, “Two state proposals under consideration in the Northeast get at a central question of extended producer responsibility programs for packaging: Should the government or private industry have more control?”
Then there was a story featuring good news for the companies collecting plastic jugs and bottles. It was titled, “Curbside plastic prices increase sharply.” Its first sentence was, “Prices for curbside plastic bales shot up over the past month, with PET bottles jumping by nearly one-third and natural HDPE notching another record.”
Next story concerned composting (a form of recycling). It was titled, “Group forms to lobby for composting.” Its opening sentence was, “Organics processing stakeholders have created a coalition to advocate for expanding America's composting infrastructure.”
And the last story reviewed was titled, “Haulers report boosted recycling revenues in 2021.” That is good news. Its open sentence was, “Higher commodity prices drove year-over-year recycling revenue increases for North America's largest garbage and recycling companies.”
Ending Personal Note; Although it has nothing to do with recycling (and the National Police Week was last week), we would like to add our endorsement of a suggestion we heard about. If you wish to show your appreciation for the law enforcement members in your community, here’s one easy way to do it: Just replace the bulb in one of the outside lights that stay on during the night (or a porch light) with a blue bulb. (Blue is often associated with the law since many of their uniforms are blue or have blue in them.) We think that is a great idea and blue bulbs cost little. (Or, as I did, you can even paint a LED bulb blue as they don’t get that hot.) But what an easy way to honor and thank those who put their life on the line every day to protect us.
