Editor,
A political cartoon in Saturday’s paper shows a broken down car, a shack and part of a truck and said they are not really a car, a house and a truck.
The last panel shows a small recycle bin — no glass — and asks readers if we consider this a recycle program.
Recycling using all-in-one carts was started years ago throughout much of Washington state. Co-mingled recycling is a convenient way to make landfills last longer, reduce trips to drop off stations and allow customers to choose lesser garbage service than they have now.
While there is a cost to create a recycling program to pay for trucks, employees and carts, you can partially or completely offset this by reducing garbage service, usually a reduction of 30 percent or more. This allows a household to go from two garbage cans to one, or even better to choose every-other-week or monthly service.
Island Disposal has worked with the county to start a curbside recycle program for the past seven years.
The proposed plan would use a wheeled 96-gallon cart, not a small bin, provided by Island Disposal, or smaller if you don’t have the room. It’s picked up every other week and all of the recycling goes in the same container, no need to separate anything.
Glass would not be included because processors are less willing to accept paper coated with broken glass. Those that do process glass have little or no market to truly recycle what’s broken in the trucks and broken at the recycle plant.
Glass becomes a PR fix instead of real recycling.
Island County commissioners recently voted 2-1 to rescind an ordinance for mandatory combined recycle and garbage services which is the only way to keep recycling costs low.
In response to the recent “no” vote and comments by the board of commissioners that residents are against this recycling program, we encourage residents to e-mail and call the county commissioners representing District No. 2 and District No. 3 showing support for recycling.
If those commissioners hear that you want recycling, hopefully we can start now and not wait indefinitely.
Kent Kovalenko
District Manager
Island Disposal
