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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250649
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Joel Turner Municipal Writer
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

INTEREST IN RECYCLING RISING FAST

Less than two years ago, the Clean Valley Council received an average of three or four phone calls a month about recycling.

In April, there were more than 200 calls from Roanoke Valley residents seeking information about recycling.

"There seems to be a rapidly growing interest in recycling and the time is right for the local governments to get into it," said Ann Weaver, director of the Clean Valley Council.

Weaver told the Fifth Planning District Commission on Thursday that her organization has been trying for a decade to increase public awareness about the need for recycling, but interest seems to have increased dramatically in the past 18 months.

Vinton started a mandatory recycling program this week. Roanoke will start a voluntary program this summer that will involve all 40,000 households within four years.

Roanoke County, which started a pilot recycling project several years ago, plans an expanded program this year.

Weaver said the General Assembly has approved state mandates that require localities to recycle 10 percent of their solid waste by 1991, 15 percent by 1993 and 25 percent by 1995.

Despite the growing concern locally and nationally about recycling, "the one area where we fall down is not buying enough products made with recycled paper and other recycled materials," she said.

Unless consumers demand and buy products that are made with recycled materials, she said, manufacturers do not have an incentive to produce recycled products.

As a result, some communities in the Northeast part of the country, where recycling is encouraged or mandated, have a glut of recyclable materials they cannot sell or give away, she said.

The regional planning agency has started working with localities in the district to prepare long-range solid waste disposal plans, according to Debbie Sturm, a staff planner.

Also Thursday, the commission voted to endorse Total Action Against Poverty's application for $2 million in federal funds to continue its Head Start preschool program for economically disadvantaged children.

The Head Start program serves 600 children in the planning district.

by CNB