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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990                   TAG: 9005110666
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RECYCLING

For $5, you can stunt those pesky garden weeds with a truckload of mulch - not from the True Value, but from the Roanoke Regional Landfill.

For two months now, a new $190,000 landfill contraption has been shredding wood and construction throwaways, turning yesterday's trash into today's revenue. Ninety tons already have sold, bringing in $1,122.

But the real bargain for taxpayers is cost avoidance: Every ton of throwaways that gets recycled is a ton governments don't have to pay to dump.

The landfill board, with its plans for a new landfill site under review by the Department of Waste Management, is in general trying to be a good neighbor. The board already has allocated up to $36,000 for the Clean Valley Council's recycling-education efforts.

And the other day it gave Roanoke County's volunteer recycling effort a much-needed boost - $81,000 that will help furnish 2,000 county residents with bins, bringing the total number of households in the program to 3,800.

Two other areas the board is exploring, and should further pursue: sponsoring a hazardous-waste amnesty day, during which residents could safely dispose those old pesticide and paint-thinner cans that have been collecting dust in the basement; and a large-scale public relations campaign, to get to residents who still aren't convinced that recycling is the way to go.

While the bargain-rate mulch is a great idea, the best place for recycling remains in the home and on the curb - before the trash gets mixed together and contaminated. And, with a current recycling rate of just under 10 percent, the valley still has a long way to go toward meeting the state's mandate for 1995, to recycle 25 percent of our waste.

Weekly participation figures for Roanoke County's program show that 31 percent to 34 percent of the households set out recyclables. While that figure is misleadingly low - most families don't set their recyclables out every week; they wait till the bins are full - there's still room for improvement.

For the past year, the valley has been a leader in statewide recycling efforts. Roanoke County was the first of about a dozen counties in Virginia to institute a voluntary recycling program; Vinton was the first locality to make recycling mandatory. As soon as the city of Roanoke hires its recycling coordinator, things should get under way there.

The real test is whether the valley will be holding on to its mantle of recycling leadership in 1995. If it is, the bargains will only get better.