Volume 18, No. 3
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Selected Articles:
Kentucky Division of Waste Management Estimates Recycled Volumne Eastern Kentucky PRIDE Gears Up for Kick-Off
BIRP Cooperating With Other In Promoting America Recycles Day
Myths & Realities of Bottle Bill

Kentucky Division of Waste Management Estimates Volumne of Recycled Materials
The Kentucky Division of Waste Management reports estimated figures for recycling volumes. The totals reported are in tons of materials unless otherwise indicated. The figures reported are for the year 1996. Aluminum cans ... 9,229.5 tons Antifreeze, ethyl glycol ... 4,778. tons Asphalt ... 4,095 tons Cardboard ... 151,037.7 tons Cloth ... 5,898.5 tons Yard waste . . . 91,875 tons Computer paper ... 252.4 tons Concrete. . 71,922.25 tons Glass ... 12,998 tons Lead acid batteries .... 69,730 units Magazines .... 4,831 tons Metals, ferrous (steel) ... 174,334 tons Metals, non ferrous ... 9,201.7 tons Mixed residential paper ... 1,915.9 tons Motor oil.. . 1,681,976 gallons Newsprint.... 71,853 tons Office paper, mixed ... 34,202 tons Office paper, white ... 1,937 tons Paint ... 2,730 gallons Plastic (2 liter pop bottles PET) ... 5,056 tons Plastic milk jugs (HDPE) ... 733.9 tons Non specific plastics ... 3,400 tons Printer toner cartridges ... 5,935 units Steel cans ... 3,833 tons Telephone books ... 384 tons Tires ... 833,715 units Christmas trees .... 1,645 units White goods .... 10,201 tons Wood pallets ... 661,946 tons

Miscellaneous ... 351,479 tons Total amount of recyclables collected in Kentucky 4,323,228 tons and/or units. This represents a major effort, and shows the great variety of items that are being collected and recycled in Kentucky through its various collection programs. (Click here to return to top.)

Eastern Kentucky PRIDE Gears Up for Kick-Off
U.S. Representative Harold "Hal" Rogers has set the wheels in motion for an October kick off event marking the commencement of Eastern Kentucky PRIDE, the new environmental clean up initiative announced by Rogers and Kentucky Secretary of Natural Resources Jim Bickford.

PRIDE stands for Personal Responsibilities In a Desirable Environment, and it represents the first comprehensive region wide local, state, federal cooperative effort designed to address the serious challenge of cleaning up the region's rivers and streams of sewage and garbage, ending illegal trash dumps, promoting environmental awareness, and renewing pride in Eastern and Southern Kentucky.

As part of the initiative, Rogers has been working in Washington to ensure that federal support and technical resources are available to help with this massive effort.

This year, he has been able to secure approval by the House of Representatives of $15.5 million in funding for various PRIDE projects throughout the region, and he is working to ensure this funding is signed into law.

"The environmental problems we face in Eastern and Southern Kentucky are critical, and it's something that should concern us all," Rogers said. "Everyday thousands of gallons of sewage find their way into Kentucky's rivers and streams and hundreds of pounds of garbage end up on roadsides and in waterways. This sewage and garbage knows no boundaries, and everyone needs to throw their support behind this massive effort to clean up our streams, rivers and roadsides."

Rogers said that PRIDE would depend on several things. First, federal resources from Washington, D.C. must be available to help fund environmental clean up efforts, especially sewage treatment systems.

Second, federal, state, and local officials must work together, across geographical lines to help communities address their critical waste disposal problems.

Third, county officials must adopt ordinances to promote proper sewage hook ups and end illegal trash dumps.

And fourth, citizens of all ages should be educated about the importance of proper sewage and solid waste disposal.

"I will 11 be working in on the federal level to initiate many projects in our region to address some of the most urgent environmental problems facing our area, but getting people involved in this effort is the only way we can make PRIDE work," Rogers said.

He noted that we must make it work. It's critical to our future, not only to protect the health and well being of our people, but also to promote economic opportunities and tourism development in a region where it is desperately needed. It will improve lives, protect people, and bring back the pride we have all had in our Southern and Eastern Kentucky.

The October kick off was to be held October 20.

What is Eastern Kentucky PRIDE?
It is an event created to focus people's attention on the pollution problems in a 40 county region of eastern and southeastern Kentucky 'and to find solutions to clean up and stop the pollution that spoils our rivers, lakes, creeks and streams. The two main pollution sources are straight pipe sewage discharge and the illegal dumping of trash.

PRIDE is trying to rekindle a sense of pride in ourselves, in our community, and for our future. The approach is to work together as a region so we can solve the numerous problems simultaneously so we can all enjoy the results.

What are the goals of the PRIDE program?
To provide federal, state, and local government resources to local citizens as they work to clean up their part of Eastern and Southeastern Kentucky and eliminate problems such as illegal dumps and straight pipe. sewage discharges in order to provide a better quality of life and a proper environment for economic and tourism development.

How will PRIDE achieve these goals?
First, by asking every citizen of the region to become involved in this effort and to do their part to help clean up Eastern Kentucky.

Second, to provide resources for local governments to provide the water and waste water infrastructure needed to eliminate water pollution problems and assist in their efforts to eliminate other environmental problems such as illegal dumps.

Third, by educating the public on why this project is important and how they can help and participate in the PRIDE program.

Who is in charge of the PRIDE program?
The PRIDE program was created by U.S. Congressman Hal Rogers and Kentucky Natural Resources Secretary James Bickford. The program will be part of, and operate out of, the Center for Rural Development in Somerset, Kentucky. In addition to county and city governments, other government agencies involved include:

Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, Huntington District and Nashville District ... Area Development Districts... U.S. Forest Service ... Kentucky Dept. of local Government ... Kentucky River Authority ... U.S. Office of Surface Mining... Kentucky Division of Waste Management ... Kentucky Division of Water.. U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Services . . . Kentucky Department of Surface Mining ... Rural Development Administration . . . Appalachian Regional Commission... Manchester Federal Corrections Facility ... Kentucky Infrastructure Authority... Economic Development Agency ... and County Health Departments.

Who is Included in the PRIDE Service Area?
The counties of Adair, Bell, Breathitt, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Estill, Floyd, Garrard, Green, Harlan, Jackson, jessamine, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Lincoln, Magoffin, Martin, McCreary, Menifee, Metcalfe, Monroe,,Morgan, Owsley, Perry, Pike, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Russell, Taylor, Wayne, Whitley, and Wolfe.

All citizens of this 40 county service area will be benefited.

When Daniel Boone and other pioneers made their way to Kentucky in the late 1700s, they found a region of incredible beauty, rugged mountains, abundant resources, and clean, crisp, blue waters. They tamed this country, settled Kentucky's mountain communities, and helped forge the rich cultural heritage that we cherish today. Pollutants, trash and raw sewage, however, threaten the entire region.

PRIDE is an exciting new comprehensive clean up initiative. The first of its kind, the effort targets the economically poor area of Kentucky's Appalachian region. Its goal is to rid the rivers and streams of sewage and garbage, end illegal trash dumps, educate people on the importance and benefits of a clean environment, and recall the pride of Eastern and Southern Kentucky.

Representative Rogers is working on funding for sewer projects in five communities plus funding for an innovative new system to capture trash and dispose of solid waste emptying into the Cumberland River and Lake Cumberland. (Click here to return to top.)

BIRP Cooperating With Other Agencies in Promoting America Recycles Day
BIRP is one of several organizations who have joined together to participate in the first annual America Recycles Day scheduled for Saturday, November 15. The theme is "Keep Recycling Working ... Buy Recycled." The Division' of Waste Management has appointed a statewide planning committee to organize events statewide and locally for the Kentucky Recycles Day.

From the schoolhouse to the State House, Americans will be signing pledge cards to recycle and shop for recycled products said Fran McPoland, Federal Environmental Executive and co-chair of the America Recycles Day steering committee.

Serving on the Kentucky recycles Day planning committee are representatives from the Natural Resources & Environmental Protection Cabinet, the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, Kentucky Department of Local Government, Kentucky.

League of Cities, Kentuckiana District of the U.S. Postal Service, Solid Waste Association of Coordinators of Kentucky, Kentucky Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America, Kentucky Environmental Education Council and the Business Industry Recycling Program (BIRP).

Working with these organizations, the Division of Waste Management is disseminating planning guides, posters and pledge cards to encourage local communities to participate by; scheduling activities for schools, civic groups, businesses, and residents. BIRP is purchasing airtime for advertising to promote buying recycled.

Recycling is a process. This process has distinct elements, which are represented by the three chasing arrows of the familiar recycling logo. These arrows indicate we need to take three distinct steps in order to complete the cycle or to "close the loop."

First, we need to collect what would otherwise be thrown away ... materials such as newspapers, plastic bottles, glass containers and steel cans. Nationally and in Kentucky, we are doing an excellent job with this phase of recycling. Kentucky now has collection activities in every county.

Next, we need to use these recovered materials as feedstock for manufacturing new products. Manufacturing with recycled feedstock requires product development and testing, production and quality control, and marketing.

There has to be a market for these products with recycled content ... otherwise neither the recovered materials not any new products made from them have any value. Consumer demand for products made with recycled content is a critical factor. Customers buying these recycled content products close the loop of recycling.

It's not hard to find products with recycled content. A wide variety of products is readily available, and new ones are being introduced daily.

Today, we find long lasting plastic lumber made from milk jugs, landscaping mulch made from tree and yard waste, clothing made from pop bottles, and even cat litter made from yesterday's news.

Kentucky Firms Produce Products with Recycled Content
In Kentucky alone, many new companies have been established to produce materials made with recycled content. New companies bring new jobs. Examples include:

• A company in Somerset makes playground equipment from recycled plastic.
• Several companies in the state make outdoor furniture from plastic milk jugs.
• Many Kentucky companies make reconditioned wooden pallets from old ones.
• Another company makes insulation and mulch from newspapers.

On the national level, enough steel is recycled in a typical year to manufacture the steel components for 13 million new cars. And ALL steel parts are made from 25 to 100 percent recycled steel.

Virtually all appliances contain recycled steel. And, like all recycled content items, appliances are recyclable when they have reached the end of their useful lives.

According to the American Forest and Paper Association, ore than 37 percent of all paper made in America's mills comes from recycled fibers. More than 300 mills around the country use office waste paper to make new paper and cardboard products. Kentucky mills in Owensboro, Hawesville and Maysville are among them.

Offices now commonly have supplies, furniture and carpet made from recycled materials. More and more computers have recycled content casings.

Many if not most consumers are probably buying recycled content items without even realizing it. But just think how much more recycled content products we could buy if we made a conscious effort to purchase them for our homes and for work.

The list of recycled content items state government buys includes more than a hundred items as diverse as guard rails, cement, aluminum signs, lubricating oils and metal pipes. All the calendars, paper towels, copy paper and corrugated items purchased for use in state offices have recovered fiber as well as all individual and corporate tax forms and booklets are printed on paper with recycled content.

And, everyday, more and more private business are joining the buy recycled campaign. Kentucky Recycles Day is an opportunity for all Kentuckians to join in this effort. Consumers are urged to use their purchasing power to support the process of recycling by closing the loop and buying recycled. By making a concerted effort to buy recycled products, we can expand markets and create new ones.

For more information about Kentucky Recycles Day, contact Rich Green, Division of Waste Management at (502) 564-6716. (Click here to return to top.)

Myths & Realities of the Bottle Bill
Here are a few of the myths and realities regarding bottle bills.

1. Bottle Bills are contemporary.
The first bottle bill was introduced in 1972. The last of the nine states to pass a mandatory container deposit law was New York in 1982... 15 years ago.

2. Bottle Bills clean up litter.
No. Bottle bills address only deposit container litter. The remainder is not dealt with. And in deposit states, deposit containers are still found along the roads. A litter study done in Vermont shows that 7 percent of littered items are deposit containers.

States are not interested in piecemeal litter programs. Comprehensive programs are the most effective means to tackle the issue. Dan Syrek is America's litter expert. Here's what he says: "litter control programs that have been in place five or more years - such as 'Don't Mess With Texas' - achieve a beer and soft drink container rate that equals or beats deposit state beverage container litter. More significantly, TOTAL litter is almost half as much in non-deposit states as those with bottle bills."

Supporting this thesis are litter studies recently done in Nebraska and Florida, both of which do not have deposits. In the Cornhusker state, since 1980, beverage container litter has been reduced by 74% in item count, from 29 beverage containers per road mile to 7.5 in 1996. In the Sunshine state. between 1994 and 1996 there was a 20% reduction in beverage container litter.

Of interest, states that passed deposit legislation have had to incorporate programs to go after other litter... the bottle bill, quite simply, is NOT a litter panacea.

3. Almost all of the beverage containers that are recycled come from deposit states
First of all there are no state-by-state statistics. All material numbers are national. There is no data base to compare deposit and non-deposit recycling rates. And the number provided in the EPA Waste Characterization study - 35% - is an ESTIMATE. Furthermore, the study notes that many containers in deposit states are coming back through curbside and drop-off programs.

Not all containers come back via the deposit system. Jerry Powell wrote in the Oct. 96 issue of Resource Recycling that for UBCs , 17% are captured from curbside, 45% from buy-back and 38% from deposit. He also noted that the deposit percentage would continue to decline as more curbside programs come on line and existing ones increase capture rates. Last year, 530 million pounds of soft drink bottles were recycled ... an amount approximately five times larger than in 1982 when our last bottle bill was passed.

4. Deposits and curbside recycling work together perfectly.
Technically they may operate together but the economics and efficiency of a dual retrieval system are far from perfect. In non-deposit states, it's estimated that beverage containers represent less than 20% of all recyclables collected at curbside, but generate more than 70% of the scrap revenue. Municipalities want the beverage containers to help offset program costs. In every deposit state the cost to operate a curbside program is significantly higher due to the loss of these recycled materials.

Several national studies examined the cost to recycle a ton of beverage containers. They found that under a deposit law the cost was approximately $630/ton. With curbside, that same ton cost $70-140/ton.

And here's something interesting: A 1993 Peter Hart poll found that 70% of respondents who live in deposit states said they do not return their empties to the store for deposit, preferring to use curbside and recycling center programs instead.

5. Bottle Bills will bring back refillables.
Unfortunately, this is like saying that buying buggy whips will bring back the horse and carriage. Soft drink refillables are a package whose time has come and gone. It is estimated that only a tiny fraction of glass soft drink bottles is refillable ... and remember that all glass containers account for less than 2% of all packaged soft drinks.

Why has the refillable gone the way of the ice box? Because the consumer prefers lighter packaging which today can be recycled via drop-off, curbside, or buyback programs. Here's a case in point. In Canada's Ontario Province there is anarchic law requiring 30% of all soft drinks sold must be in refillables. To comply, bottlers have promoted, highlighted, discounted. displayed, and done most everything except give away the product. The best that could be achieved was around 20%. Consumers said they didn't buy refillables because other packages were less cumbersome, there wasn't any need to lug them back to the store, and they could put the aluminum, PET and non-refillable glass in the curbside-recycling bin, along with other household recyclable materials.

6. Bottle Bills make soft drink, beer companies, and retailers pay for the cost of recycling.
Let's first understand that ALL beer and soft drink containers account for less than 3% of the municipal waste stream ... it's actually .74% for soft drinks and 2.16% for beer. Some have wondered why deposit advocates don't shift their efforts to other. larger components of MSW... like yard trimmings which is 13.7% o food waste which is almost 9% or wood which is 8.8%

Why single out beer and soft drink companies for punitive legislation which really is a tax. It's true that in deposit states the recycling rate for deposit containers is higher than in non-bottle bill states, but this is changing as more states like New Jersey, Minnesota and Washing ton drive up their participation and capture rates. And recycling via deposits is just plain expensive.

Complying with the bottle bill costs retailers bottlers, and distributors money, which ultimately is passed along to the consumer. In a free market economy command and control systems -- such as mandatory) container deposit laws -- are not the most appealing alternatives to dealing with litter and solid waste. There are better, more efficient and less expensive ways to address the issue.

The soft drink industry has been and will always remain committed to environmental leadership. We are the most recycled package in America. We've reduced the amount of material used in our primary packing by approximately 20% in the last decade. Our bottlers are utilizing more reusable secondary packages, such as the plastic trays for cans. The money spent on recycled content packaging, office materials, and workplace items totals billions of dollars per year. Many of our bottlers and state soft drink association officials participate in community or statewide litter abatement and recycling programs, including those managed by Keep America Beautiful affiliates.

Simply put, the Business Industry will continue its participation in practical, efficient, and cost effective recycling and litter abatement programs. (Click here to return to top.)