Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991 TAG: 9102020155
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KIM SUNDERLAND NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
And now there are fewer spots to drop off plastics, a non-biodegradable material that many claim is hazardous to the environment.
"It's a problem right now," said David Vogelsong, Blacksburg's senior engineer and recycling coordinator. "We're working on some solutions."
The main problem with picking up plastics for recycling - including polyethylene milk jugs, detergent bottles and some soda bottles - is money.
"Plastics are not a money-making commodity yet," said Mark Aust, president of Gem City Iron & Metal Co. in Pulaski, which was in partnership with another local recycler for plastic pickup in Blacksburg, Radford and Pulaski.
Aust closed all his individual plastic collection sites last year.
He and former partner Bill Hager, who now runs a Pulaski play school, had plastic bins at Harding Avenue Elementary and Eats Natural Foods in Blacksburg, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Women's Club in Radford, Auburn High School and three schools in Pulaski.
Aust said transportation and labor costs were higher than profits the plastic generated.
The company still is involved in larger programs, including the recycling center at Pulaski's Kroger parking lot.
In the mean time, local organizations in Blacksburg and Radford have tried to make up for Gem City's plastic pullout.
In Blacksburg, plastics are now accepted at Margaret Beeks Elementary, Blacksburg Middle School, Blacksburg New School, Brightwood Manor, Alpha Gamma Rho on Tom's Creek Road and the Newman Community Center. The Montgomery County landfill also takes plastics.
And the Voluntary Action Center and American Society of Civil Engineers at Virginia Tech plan to build bins, Vogelsong said.
Currently, about 4,600 residents in single-family homes and apartment buildings with three or fewer units have curbside pickup. That leaves the majority of the town's 34,000 residents without individual pickup.
Town officials and apartment managers are trying to solve that problem.
The Blacksburg Area Recycling Co-op - BARC - also is working on ways to help apartment dwellers recycle.
In Radford, plastics can be taken to the Central Recycling Center on Bolling Street, said Larry Amy, the city's environmental engineer.
"The market for plastics is just not available right now," said Amy, who is seriously considering a curbside program for Radford. "But there is a lot of research being done."
A drop center at Wade's supermarket in Dublin is scheduled to open this week and plastics can be taken there, said Fred Hilliard, program director for the New River Resource Authority.
Despite the decrease in plastic drop-off sites, recycling efforts in the New River Valley have increased as localities work to meet new state mandates to recycle increasing percentages of their wastes over the next four years.
For further information and a complete listing of all area recycling collection centers in the New River Valley, call 382-5793, 382-6928 or 961-1126.
by CNB