Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220629
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He stated that a "powerful amount of time, energy" and money would be used handling 3 trillion returnable containers. That is already being done on garbage trucks and in landfills, in addition to consuming a powerful amount of land. We are all becoming increasingly aware that the cost to taxpayers for these landfills is rising dramatically.
I don't believe that additional fuel costs for transporting these returnables back to their plants would be necessary. They could return on the same trucks that brought them, in the empty space left by the items for restocking store shelves. This, done as often as the trucks come to restock, would limit storage space for the returns. In addition, this could eliminate the extra steps and energy of melting and reshaping glass and aluminum containers.
As a daily walker on our country road, I pick up aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles to recycle. The vast majority of those are one-serving beverage containers, and I have yet to see a mayonnaise jar or a cracker box. But hey! What a great recycling idea: that all reusable containers could be returned and refilled like returnable bottles!
Garland's concern over sanitation and pests is valid. But in a country with the ingenuity to invent pop-top cans and twist-off caps, those problems are surely solvable.
I feel he is taking an extreme position to make his point in mentioning returning newspapers and magazines to their publishers. With just a little thought, it would be clear that these cannot be reused in their present form, as can bottles.
We all love the convenience of our disposables, but with landfill space becoming more scarce and more expensive daily, we all need to take responsibility for our own trash. BEVERLY O. MARTINKOSKY FLOYD COUNTY
by CNB