
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990                   TAG: 9003152557
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NO BRIE HERE

VINTON is a nice place, populated by middle- and working-class families who go to ice-hockey games and vote the Democratic ticket. Sure, that's a gross generalization: Republicans carry Vinton occasionally, and it looks as if the Lancers will be leaving Vinton because of poor attendance.

Still, it isn't exactly your chablis-and-brie kind of town. You'll see more pickups than Volvos, more Baptists than Episcopalians.

So why is Vinton the first jurisdiction in the Roanoke Valley to establish mandatory recycling of newspaper, glass, aluminum and plastic?

The answer, part one: The time is long past, if it ever existed, when recycling was merely a fad of the chablis-and-brie set.

Garbage that's reused is garbage that doesn't have to be buried in a landfill, at considerable economic and sometimes environmental cost. And at least in this neck of the woods, there's still a market for recyclable materials. (In some parts of the country, the market is glutted, at least temporarily until new recycling facilities can catch up to the supply of materials.)

The answer, part two: Nobody ever said that Baptists who drive pickups, go to hockey games and vote Democratic are fools. If it's fools you want, you might have better luck looking among the chablis- . . . no, better not say it.

by CNB