THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510130024
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Regarding ``Is recycling really worth it?'' (letter, Sept. 27): I admit being suspicious of The Wall Street Journal article ``The Recycling Myth.'' Maybe these authors were writing exactly what everyone wants to hear: There is no problem. I recently visited the Newport News Sanitary Landfill with a class. The immensity of the place was overwhelming, as was its cleanliness. The disturbing part of the trip was that, as huge as this landfill is, it is running out of room fast. A site that should not have been filled until 2011 may now last only until 2007. Was this site planned by short-sighted planners? Not at all. This increased garbage rate is due to the unforeseen population and industrial growth of the area.
Newport News, a city with one of the highest voluntary recycling rates in the nation, actually has extended the life of its facility a few years, but what then? Nobody seems to want a landfill in his or her back yard, so where to put it?
Is this a problem unique to Newport News? No. To Hampton Roads? No. To the commonwealth of Virginia? No. The world's population is doubling every 40 years. People make garbage. That is a lot of doubling in the 1,000-year period mentioned in ``The Recycling Myth.'' Maybe at our current population, 30 square miles could contain our nation's trash, but that gives us no room for growth, a factor which isn't slowing.
Recycling prolongs our natural resources. Plastics and aluminum come from nonrenewable resources. These are items that Earth is no longer producing. When they are gone, they are gone.
The EPA has done and continues to do a good job for us all. In a society based on money, sometimes someone has to tell us that it doesn't matter that pollution control costs more; that it will save lives and money in the long run.
Unless you have 30 square miles that you wish to donate to the country for garbage disposal, maybe you should look into these problems a little more.
HELEN W. KUHNS
Portsmouth, Oct. 2, 1995 by CNB