Johanna Lasserton

1. I am trying to come up with a way to prove that recycling isn’t what we think as the wording implies.

2. According to some testimony at a county WTE meeting with its citizens, one of the officials there made a comment that 70% of the east coast and 80% of the west coast paper goes to China.

3. I have several articles that say when paper is recycled at least 20% is lost to fiber damage and what is lost is made into other products or burned or disposed of in some way.

4. I have several articles that imply that 90% or so of recycled plastic is baled or made into pellets and sent overseas.

5. I have several articles that say most recycled plastic is made into fibers for rugs or clothes, and the technology is just now being approved to make grade 1 plastics back into bottles as it was originally manufactured from virgin products.

Referring to the above, if its true, its hard to find actual data to prove how much plastic, paper and wood is actually returned as a product and in what form. If all this stuff is sent over seas and, say, 50% comes back in some form other than what it was originally, or doesn’t come back at all, then to say recycling saves virgin products is grossly misleading.

Do you know anyone in the science field that may be interested in what is really happening to these supposed ‘recycle’ products?

My ‘blue box theory’, just because someone picks up my recycle stuff from my blue box does not mean it is going to be recycled, whatever that means.

Let me know if I didn’t make my point, I think I did but I don’t know how this reads to others. Science should be blind to everything but science and the worst science is undocumented data or doing science to ‘prove my point’ rather than science to find out all I can regardless of where it leads me.

I really would like to know if anyone is interested in what I call ‘truth in trash’ because I think all the ‘recycling’ talk is implying that everything we put in our blue boxes is somehow diverting 100% from using virgin products when I think in reality it may be closer to or less than 50% but I don’t have any data or studies to prove it.

I really don’t care what the real answer is, I would just like to know so taxpayers can get an honest accounting of their dollars spent and become aware of the complex world of recycling.

I am concerned that ‘recycling’ markets are a very fragile market and can be overloaded very easily then there will be less market demand for solid waste that is now eligible for recycling but I can find no studies done to predict the future of recycling markets if recycling nation wide is greatly expanded. I see all kinds of articles stating that the demand for recycling is very high and if that is the case then why isn’t somebody hounding our County officials and giving competitive bidding and fighting over our recycled pick ups. Something isn’t squaring up.

I strongly feel the above is important to determine the future of diverted solid waste, which we call recycled, and what I would like to see more closely defined such as:

1. RECYCLE – only if the product comes back in it original form/use and what is the loss of the original product during the recycling process and how are these losses disposed of(such as soft drink bottles and newsprint/paper) and what percentage of the recycled products will have to be replaced by using virgin products and what health issues are addressed in the processes, especially other countries.

2. REMANUFACTURED – all products that are made into other than the original product and what is the loss of the original product during the recycling process and how are these losses disposed of and now, apparently, most plastics now go to make fibers for rugs, clothing and decking and what percentage of the ‘recycled’ products will have to be replaced by using virgin products to satisfy the demand for the original product and what health issues are addressed in the processes, especially other countries.