Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
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LANGUAGE ARTS 8
RESEARCH PAPER:
RECYCLING PROGRAM ARTICLES
In this packet:
1.
2.
3.
4.
“Trackin' Trash” by Devon Robinson and Tanner Rattray: Pages 2-3
“Green Biz $” by Jessi Phillips: Page 4
Polk County looks to begin 'pay as you throw' program by Tom Palmer: Pages 5-7
“WASTE Woes” by Chris Jozefowicz: Pages 8-11
NAME ____________________________
Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
Title:
“Trackin' Trash” By: Robinson, Devon and Rattray, Tanner
Current Events, 00113492, 10/4/2010, Vol. 110, Issue 5
Database:
EbscoHost: MAS Ultra - School Edition
Trackin' Trash
DEBATE
A Cleveland policy stirs up a dirty debate
Think twice before tossing that plastic bottle in the trash. If you live in Cleveland, it could cost
you. Officials in that Ohio city recently decided to track residents' recycling habits using hightech garbage cans. The bins are outfitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags hat
monitor how much people recycle. Under the new policy, waste collection officials can search
residents' trash if they suspect people are not recycling enough. If residents throw away too
many recyclable items, they may be hit with a $100 fine.
Supporters say the policy will benefit the environment by encouraging residents to recycle. They
also say an increase in recycling will make money for Cleveland. The city currently pays about
$30 per ton to haul trash to a landfill but earns $26 per ton to take it to a recycling center.
Charging people who don't recycle enough could help defer landfill costs as well.
Other people, however, say the new policy stinks. They point out that searching residents'
garbage cans is an invasion of privacy. They say officials have no right to search people's trash
without permission. Opponents say recycling should be a personal choice, not a law.
Should city officials monitor residents' recycling habits? Current Events student reporters Devon
Robinson and Tanner Rattray each threw out a side.
DIG IN!
Tracking residents' recycling habits is a great idea. That will inspire the people of Cleveland to
recycle. The use of RFID tags and possibly fining residents who don't recycle will cause people
to think twice about recycling. Debbie Pomfret, a teacher in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., agrees.
"Tracking residents is a good thing because we are saving our environment from excess
emissions and overcrowded landfills," she says.
If we don't begin taking drastic measures, such as tracking residents' recycling habits and fining
residents who don't recycle, our entire world will be in peril. The less we recycle, the quicker we
fill landfills and the harder it is to find places to bury garbage, according to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Some cities and states burn garbage, which is bad for air
quality. Cities may also pay huge fees to haul their trash to other locations.
With the money it earns from its new recycling policy, Cleveland can begin eco-friendly
projects, such as a clean-air tree-planting initiative, at local schools and community centers.
Those projects can drastically improve the environment, and people will see the benefits of
recycling.
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By Devon Robinson
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
BACK OFF!
Would you like it if officials knew what you threw away? or if you were fined if you didn't
recycle? Don't get me wrong; I am all about recycling, but this is just too far. Officials have
absolutely no right to know what I get rid of or how often I get rid of it. It is an invasion of
privacy.
Recycling is a good thing, but it should not, under any circumstances, become a law. Who
knows? Smaller families may not need to recycle as often as others. They may not even use
recyclable materials at all!
Recycling should be a choice. Is it the right choice to recycle? Of course! But it is a little
extreme to make it a law. Jacob Boehlke, a sixth grader from Mequon, Wis., agrees. "People
don't need to know how often I recycle. That's up to me. Whatever happened to my privacy
rights?" he says.
Although recycling is a wonderful thing, how often a person recycles should not be monitored.
Possibly getting fined for not recycling crosses the line. I agree with conservative pundit
Michelle Malkin, who describes the high-tech garbage cans as nosy trash cans. "Yeah. It stinks,"
she writes. "And taxpayers don't need any high-falutin' technology to detect it."
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By Tanner Rattray
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By Devon Robinson and Tanner Rattray
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
Title:
“Green Biz $”
By: Phillips, Jessi
Sierra, Jul/Aug2010, Vol. 95, Issue 4
Database:
EbscoHost: Health Source - Consumer Edition
Green Biz $
If Ron Gonen has his way, it will be as convenient for Americans to make money off their
garbage as it is for them to toss it. Gonen is the CEO of RECYCLEBANK (recyclebank.com),
which contracts with cities to reward residents for their curbside recycling. Founded in
Philadelphia in 2004, RecycleBank has expanded to 26 states and the U.K. It now serves more
than 1 million homes.
The company fits garbage and recycling trucks with a mechanical arm that can weigh a
household's recycling output. The information is transmitted to RecycleBank, which deposits
points into an online account based on the weight of the recyclables. Families can use those
points — worth up to $200 per year — to shop at hundreds of retailers. Those stores, in turn, are
rewarded with a presence on the company's Web site, plus the benefit of being seen as ecominded.
"We've increased recycling by at least 100 percent in the communities we've partnered with,"
said Gonen. And while RecycleBank members can already cash in their points at green-minded
outfits like Whole Foods and Gaiam, they will soon be encouraged to spend in an even more
sustainable way: Gonen recently teamed up with eBay to motivate shoppers to buy used goods.
~~~~~~~~
By Jessi Phillips
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
Title:
Polk County looks to begin 'pay as you throw' program
Authors:
Palmer, Tom
Source:
Ledger, The (Lakeland, FL), 05/09/2011
Database:
EbscoHost: Points of View Reference Center
Polk County looks to begin 'pay as you throw' program
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Tom Palmer
May 09--BARTOW -- There was more behind last year's rollout of the sometimes controversial
95-gallon garbage carts than simply streamlining garbage pickup in unincorporated Polk County.
The limits on how much residents could throw away each week also got more people thinking
about recycling, according to Brooks Stayer, Polk County's director of waste resource
management.
"We've had requests for 43,000 new recycling bins since Oct. 1,"' he said.
That was in addition to the 110,00 bins that were already out there.
As a result, from October through January, county residential customers recycled 4,028 tons of
paper, plastic, glass, aluminum and steel, a 19 percent increase from the same period a year
earlier.
The next step in the process is called "pay as you throw." Pending approval from the County
Commission, it will begin next year.
It will involve offering residential garbage customers the option of getting 35-gallon, 65-gallon
or 95-gallon carts for household garbage and a second cart as large as 95 gallons for recycling.
Deputy County Manager Bill Beasley said public education will be essential during the
changeover, especially in retirement communities, which have been at the center of the
resistance to the new carts.
The specific rates are still being developed, Stayer said.
Stayer updated commissioners on the program Friday and hopes to get the go-ahead during
Tuesday's County Commission meeting.
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
The current residential garbage rate for county customers is $154 a year, but some residents who
dispose of less and recycle more will likely pay a lower rate.
Pay as you throw is not a new concept. It was made mandatory in many communities in Iowa in
1994, and has been instituted in other states.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kristin Lock said relatively few
places in Florida, primarily Sarasota County and Gainesville, have adopted the program so far.
The success of their programs was mentioned in the March 2011 issue of Waste Age magazine.
The idea behind pay as you throw is not only to increase the recycling rate, but to increase the
amount of revenue governments receive from recycled materials and to reduce the need to
expand landfills.
Local environmentalist John Ryan said Polk officials are moving in the right direction.
"What it could do is to force people to see the real cost of their waste," he said. "It should also
incentivize more people to recycle."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cites the equity issue in its analysis of pay as you
throw.
"When the cost of managing trash is hidden in taxes or charged at a flat rate, residents who
recycle and prevent waste subsidize their neighbors' wastefulness. Under PAYT, residents pay
only for what they throw away," EPA officials wrote.
Looking into the future, Polk County's efforts are aimed at working toward meeting a state goal
of recycling 75 percent by 2020.
That goal was contained in legislation approved in 2008.
Polk's current recycling rate is 23 percent. The statewide average is 29 percent.
Polk County's recycling rate has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade, between 22
percent and 25 percent.
According to the most recent statewide figures compiled by the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, county recycling rates in 2009 ranged from a low of 2 percent in
Washington County, a rural county in the Panhandle, to 45 percent in Duval County, a relatively
urban county composed of Jacksonville and its suburbs.
For Polk County, the ongoing challenge has been to persuade more people to participate in
curbside recycling.
In 2009, figures compiled by Polk County and submitted to DEP officials showed that 24 percent
of the homes that had curbside recycling available were participating.
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
Meanwhile, recycling participation for commercial and multifamily has been lagging.
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The DEP figures for 2009 put Polk's recycling participation for multifamily units was zero and
was only 8 percent for commercial garbage customers.
Polk County's Stayer said those figures may not accurately reflect how much commercial
recycling is occurring because reports of commercial recycling are voluntary and many
commercial recyclers are privately held and do not report because they don't want to reveal
information on their operations to competitors.
He said commercial recycling is important because that's where most of the waste in generated.
"Only 25 percent of our tonnage is residential," he said, explaining the rest is commercial or
from cities, which involves a mix of residential and commercial waste.
Stayer said in addition to getting better figures, one of the challenges of increasing the recycling
rate is finding ways to make commercial recycling more economically feasible.
For instance, although the cardboard recycling rate could increase substantially if more stores
installed separate containers for cardboard, in many cases, the cost of having the containers
emptied is more than the payment store owners receive for the cardboard they recycle.
Another issue involves finding more markets for recyclable materials to make government
recycling operations, which are now subsidized, more financially self-sufficient.
State legislation passed in 2010 established the Recycling Business Assistance Center to work
with the government and private sector to improve markets for products made from recycled
materials.
The same legislation requires multifamily and commercial developments completed after July 1,
2012, to include on-premise recycling containers.
The law also contemplates asking county officials to update their recycling plans if they are not
meeting interim recycling goals at various points between now and 2020.
Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
Title:
“WASTE Woes”
Author:
Jozefowicz, Chris
Source:
Current Health 1; Mar2010, Vol. 33 Issue 7, p10-13, 4p
Database:
EbscoHost: Health Source - Consumer Edition
WASTE Woes
Our old electronic gadgets often become toxic trash.
School tests can be stressful. But they also inspire you to help change the world. That's what
happened to three girls from the Island Trees school district in New York. Kristen Dethlefsen,
Jenna Morlock, and Marisa Wetzel learned about a growing problem from a reading section on a
test they took last year. That problem is e-waste, short for electronic waste. E-waste is junk with
electronic parts. Examples of e-waste include TVs, computers, and cell phones.
The girls learned that parts of electronic equipment contain chemicals that can be dangerous.
"We learned that e-waste causes health problems," says Marisa. Later in the year, they had to
come up with an idea for a science project. They remembered the interesting topic from their
test.
So the girls, then in eighth grade, launched a recycling drive. They called themselves the
E-Waste Girls. They helped fellow students and the community learn about properly recycling
e-waste instead of tossing it in the trash. "When we throw it out," Jenna says, "it goes to the
dump, where it piles up and piles up."
21st-Century Trash
Those trash piles are getting larger. "The problem is growing," says Barbara Kyle, the national
coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, an organization that fights e-waste.
People in the United States tossed 2.5 million tons of TVs, cell phones, computers, and printers
in 2007, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Worldwide, people throw away 10
to 20 times as much each year. That's enough e-waste to fill a train that stretches around the
globe.
The E-Waste Girls saw a lot of that kind of junk in their drive. The most common items collected
were phones, followed by computers, MP3 players and radios, and a lot of chargers and cables.
They put recycling boxes in their school principal's office and watched the boxes fill up. "By the
end it got to be too much," says Jenna. "We had to move the boxes to some supply closets."
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
The E-Waste Girls worked with their town's recycling service. The service took the e-waste to a
special recycling center. "At the recycling center, they break it down," Jenna says. The recyclers
separate the plastic, metal, glass, and other parts to reuse. "Then they take out the dangerous
chemicals and dispose of them properly," Jenna says, "so they don't escape into the air or the
ground or the water."
Passing the Problem
But most electronics in the United States are not recycled. Some items end up in landfills close to
our homes. Many more items are shipped to other countries--sometimes illegally--and left in
huge e-waste dumps in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Dangerous chemicals are the biggest problem related to e-waste, says professor Valerie Thomas.
She studies recycling at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Chemicals in e-waste can
leak into the ground, water, or air if people are not careful. (See "Hidden Hazards.") Those
chemicals can pollute if they go into a landfill or an incinerator, a facility that burns trash,
Thomas says. But they can also be dangerous if the item is recycled.
The E-Waste Girls were surprised to learn what some of the chemicals in e-waste could do.
"They can harm the environment and people," says Marisa. "The chemicals can cause a lot of
health problems, like kidney damage, liver damage, and nervous system damage."
So why would other countries take dangerous waste? For money, mainly. It's often cheaper to
ship junk overseas than to take care of it properly in the United States. Poor people living in
countries such as China or Ghana break apart the old electronics and sell the parts. They may
earn only a few dollars a day. Children often work beside adults in these e-waste scrapyards. In
most cases, the law does not protect those workers from harm.
Buyers Beware
People in countries that create millions of tons of waste--such as the United States--can prevent
e-waste pollution from spreading.
The E-Waste Girls say the first challenge is helping people learn what e-waste is. "We asked our
friends, and nobody had heard anything about it," says Jenna. Many of their teachers didn't know
either. So Kristen, Jenna, and Marisa taught everyone, including the teachers. "They said that
now that they know what e-waste is," says Marisa, "they're going to start recycling it properly."
One big way people can help reduce e-waste is by buying smartly. For instance:
• Consider electronics made with fewer toxic chemicals. (See "Green Machines.")
• Choose products that will last several years.
• Don't replace electronic items until you really need to.
"People should ask themselves, 'Can I upgrade my old one instead of getting a new one?'"
Thomas says. "How long will this product last?'"
Something else that everyone can do to fight e-waste is to recycle old stuff. The E-Waste Girls
say their recycling drive collected 269 items, weighing in at more than 2,000 pounds. That's 1
ton! The girls' project also helped them become finalists in the Siemens We Can Change the
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Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
World Challenge, a national student competition.
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The E-Waste Girls see a future in which projects like theirs will not be needed. Marisa hopes
recycling e-waste will soon be as easy as taking out the trash. "In our town, garbage men take
away the garbage and recycling," she says. They pick up paper, plastic, and glass to be recycled,
but not electronics. "It would be cool," Marisa says, "if they could take away the e-waste to be
recycled too."
Green Machines
E-waste would disappear if companies made sure all electronics were recyclable and weren't
made of toxic components. Right now, that is impossible. But researchers such as Valerie
Thomas are dreaming of that day. Thomas is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
She explores ways to make it easier for people to recycle all kinds of products. Even computers
might one day be as safe for the environment and as easy to recycle as a cardboard box, she says.
Some computer companies have already pledged to remove toxic chemicals from their products.
Environmental groups and the people who buy these products can also help by asking companies
for safer products that can be recycled. Thomas predicts more people will recycle electronics
when all they have to do is put them out with the rest of their recycling in a pickup bin.
Hidden Hazards
"Electronics are where a lot of toxins live," says Barbara Kyle from the Electronics TakeBack
Coalition. People are generally safe if products are used correctly. But if electronic equipment is
broken or disposed of improperly, the chemicals can escape into the environment. The following
four substances are singled out by the Environmental Protection Agency as particularly
dangerous.
Research Paper: Recycling Program Articles
SUBSTANCE
COMMON SOURCES
POSSIBLE HEALTH
RISKS
lead
screens of TVs and
computer monitors (in
cathode-ray tubes); solder
mercury
bulbs in flat-screen TVs and damage to nervous system
monitors; laptop screens;
damage to many body parts,
including nerves, kidneys,
blood, reproductive organs,
bones, and muscles
and kidneys
compact fluorescent bulbs
brominated
plastic cases and cables
flame retardants
cancer, nerve damage,
disruption of liver function
cadmium
rechargeable batteries
cancer, kidney damage
THINK ABOUT IT
Instead of tossing old computers or cell phones in the trash, what could you do to keep those
things from becoming e-waste?
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By Chris Jozefowicz
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