ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020018
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
It's nearly impossible, at first glance, to detect even the slightest similarity between a series of fantastic, colorful sculptures created by Roanoke schoolkids and a small block of brownish-gray synthetic wood.
But at a conference tackling environmental issues, the two displays represented a link between basic environmental education and cutting-edge recycling technology.
"We need to get out and teach the kids, and teach the adults as well, about why recycling does or does not work," said Gwyn Rowland of the Virginia Recycling Association, a sponsor of the Moving Together for the Environment 1996 Conference & Trade Show held this week at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.
Using newspapers and other "clean trash" to create artwork helps show kids the basics of recycling, she said. Without community commitment to recycling, companies would have no raw materials to create high-tech building materials out of peanut hulls and plastic.
Almost 300 people from across the state attended the conference, which also was sponsored by the Virginia Council on Litter Prevention and Recycling, Keep Virginia Beautiful Inc. and the Department of Environmental Quality.
Workshops teaching the basics of public relations, Internet resources and classroom environmental projects were offered. Some 30 exhibitors, including recycling companies and environmental-interest organizations, were represented as well.
In past years, educators met during the school year, while the DEQ, VRA and waste-management groups held their own conferences.
But the DEQ budget was cut last year and, since coordinating recycling and waste management and environmental education often is handled by the same few people in small communities, the groups decided to hold a joint conference.
"It's a great opportunity for the commonwealth's government to work together with private folks," said Becky Norton Dunlop, Virginia's secretary of natural resources. "You not only get some economies of scale, but you get some groups with common bonds."
The goal of the meeting was to allow organizations involved with different aspects of recycling to share ideas and concerns, Rowland said, and to teach the public about the changing environmental business.
No longer is recycling just a "feel-good, warm-fuzzy" activity, as it was some years ago, she said. Because so many companies have developed ways to reuse materials that once would have been sent to landfills, recycling has become an economic issue, driven by the same supply and demand forces that affect any other commodities business.
That's why, she said, prices for recyclables fluctuate so widely, and why some municipalities are beginning to charge for curbside pickup of recycled goods.
"There are a lot of myths," she said. "Hopefully, conferences such as this one can help dispel those."
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART STAFF Caroline Bell of Virginia Fibre andby CNBDavid Miller talk to Kevin Rosenow (right) of Weyerhaeuser at a
recycling trade show at the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center.
color