KY

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Kentucky's Making Great Strides. . .

Bottle Bills in the News

Promote Recycling Efforts

For Your Information

Kentucky has made great strides in the past couple of years in diverting materials from landfills and improving on our recycling rate.

Kentucky’s recycling and composting programs diverted 32% of trash from landfills in 2005, saving $58 million in disposal costs preserving landfill space and avoiding environmental impacts of disposal.  They are definitely undercounting recycling because they are missing a lot of commercially recycled material.  If you add in yard waste, there is a 32% waste diversion rate which keeps waste out of landfills.  Final figures for 2006 are not yet available. 

Recycling drives a significant industry in Kentucky employing nearly 10,000 workers.  The state has major infrastructure in place including nearly 400 drop off centers and roadside recycling pickup for at least 230,000 households. 

As more illegal dumps are cleaned up and addressed, more of the state’s resources can be redirected to support recycling.  As of now, 728 illegal dumps have been cleaned up and there are 986 illegal dumps still remaining.  There has been 7,451 tons of material picked up at a cost of $2.5 million. 

Participation in curbside garbage collection has increased since l993.  HB 174 requires waste haulers and recycling haulers to register and report to each county, providing a more accurate report for curbside collection.  The 2005 statewide household participation rate for all collection types is 87.73%. 

BIRP belongs to the Kentucky Recycling Interest Group (KRIG) and works to assist the Natural Resources Cabinet on strategies to improve recycling in Kentucky.

Stay tuned.

BOTTLE BILLS IN THE NEWS

Oregon, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Maryland, and Missouri are all states that have been involved recently in bottle bill battles.  Oregon, Connecticut, and New York are working on expanding bottle bills to include water, flavored water, non-carbonated beverages, juices, teas, and sports drinks.

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WE NEED TO PROMOTE AND EXPAND OUR RECYCLING EFFORTS

We met recently with a firm called Parallel Products.  The firm is located in Louisville, Kentucky.  The company will take paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum for recycling.  They deal with dated or damaged product.  Oftentimes bottlers or distributors have difficulty getting rid of spoiled, damaged, or dated product.  Parallel Products will take this and manufacture ethanol from the soft drink, beer, wine, and spirits and then recycle the packaging.  To get the full story and help us build industry recycling, contact:  Gus Ansback,, at 502-471-2442.  The place of destruction is at 1620 Bernheim Lane, Louisville, KY.  Jayne Meredith is the Compliance Administrator.  She can be reached at 502-634-0008.

We need bottlers, distributors, grocers, and others to take advantage of this service.

Meantime, we are working to develop relations with new staff in the Natural Resources Cabinet Solid Waste Division.

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FOR YOUR INFORMATION

There are three companies in Kentucky listed in the top 75 firms involved in plastic recycling in the United States.  They are:

Champion Polymer Recycling – Winchester, Kentucky
Luis Castanheiro, Division Manager
Firm processes PET, PVC, Low Density PE/Linear LDPE, and Polyropylene.
This year the firm had $48 million in recycling sales.  They recycled 150 million pounds of plastic.

Somerset Recycling Services -  Somerset, Kentucky
Steve Keck, President
Firm processes PET, High Density Polyethylene, PVC, Low Density PE/Linear LPDE, Polypropyene, and “others”.
This year the firm had $14.6 million in recycling sales.  They recycled 28.5 million pounds of plastic.

Alternative Plastics, Inc. – Erlanger, Kentucky
Dennis Boyer, Vice President
Firm processes PET< High Density Polyethylene, PVC, Low Density PE/Linear LPDE, and Polyroprylene.
This year the firm had $12.8 million in recycling sales and recycled 60 million pounds of plastic.

BIRP CONTINUES TO MONITOR AND WORK TO SEE THAT WE ARE NOT SURPRISED BY BOTTLE BILL LEGISLATION.

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