Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT BYRD ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
"I'm not trying to sell Cinch-Saks," Thomas W. Higgins confided. "I'm trying to sell an idea."
Higgins' idea - clear Hefty Cinch-Saks - might seem a trifle mundane. But last month's Earth Day somehow has Americans excited about a mundane task - throwing out trash.
And that has people very excited at Waste Expo '90, the annual convention of the National Solid Wastes Management Association.
More than 10,000 people are at the Georgia World Congress Center, attending seminars - like "Women In Waste" and "Backyard Basics: How Composting Can Improve Your Bottom Line."
They're looking over the latest new gee-gaws for their industry, including the Cram-A-Lot Compactor Sentry System, computer software and recycler-friendly garbage trucks.
(Garbage trucks, it should be noted, look mighty strange when they are (a) clean and (b) surrounded by models in cocktail dresses.)
"If we have another Earth Day, everybody's going to be doing this," said Jerry Andregg, standing next to the Kann Curb Sorter garbage truck, a fancy white job with four compartments for four different kinds of garbage and a plastic masher in the middle.
"It's helped our business out," he said, "it" being Earth Day. "And it's raised people's awareness - how important it is to start recycling."
"The awareness here is nothing but recycling," said Doug McGee of Plastican.
You know those big buckets that joint compound and school-cafeteria mayonnaise come in? Well, with color-coding, a hole for rainwater to drain out of and a snazzy logo on the front, Plastican makes them into bins for household recyclables.
"Everyone wants to do it," McGee said, "it" being recycling. "But everyone's trying to figure out how to do it."
That's what the guy with the Cinch-Saks figures.
"The most effective way to run a co-mingled curbside recycling program is to pick up the material in a clear bag," said Higgins, manager of Hefty Recycling Opportunities for the Mobil Chemical Co.'s Consumer Products Division.
The idea, he explained, is that homeowners don't want 17 recycling bins cluttering up the garage, and cities don't want to pay the garbageman to dawdle at the curb, putting the brown beer bottles in one place, the clear juice bottles in another place and the newspapers in a third place.
The answer: the clear garbage bag.
Maybe, um, a clear Hefty Cinch-Sak?
"It's up to our marketing guys to get their share of the market," Higgins said.
Over at the Dempster display ("a Waste-Quip company"), John L. Thomas, vice president for sales, is showing off the Recycle One, a gleaming white garbage truck with a side-loading window-box gizmo that dumps different kinds of garbage in the correct place in the truck.
"Earth Day has really brought it into focus," Thomas said, adding that recycling "is the answer to our disposables problem."
"So many of our landfills are filling up," he said. "We're running out of landfill space. One way to extend landfill life is to put less in them."
Dempster and the other exhibitors at Waste Expo '90 have their biggest-ever audience to pitch to; the convention's attendance of 10,000-plus is a record for the show.
Some of them may need a few garbage trucks; others may need office trash cans or shredding machines.
But Saul Brett Inc. wants to sell something to all of them.
"We're the only company with 14-karat jewelry for sanitation, from $115 to $5,000 - in stock!" said Jimmy Brett, who's hawking stuff while Saul's back in New York minding the store.
The Brett company makes decals for garbage cans and garbage trucks. They've plastered the convention with signs and buttons bearing the "DRUGS ARE GARBAGE" message the company believes in.
They make gold-colored garbage-can tie tacks. They even make some spiffy gold-and-diamond garbage-truck pins for the valued sanitation employee, or the supportive sanitation spouse.
"No one," Jimmy said, "does it like we do."
by CNB