District 1 Resident Interested in Recycling

7/9/2008 11:52:58 AM #

While it would be wonderful to have recycling curbside, I would be happy just to have someplace close to take my recycling to.  (Like the site that was on Lee's Summit Road).  I already take my aluminum to the "can man" and my paper to the schools,but my trash would be GREATLY reduced if I had a place for my paperboard, glass, plastic and cardboard.  Surely someone has a spot on their lot that could be "donated" as a drop off point...for instance that BIG EMPTY AREA next to Goodwill store?

Angie

7/9/2008 9:57:30 PM #

I don't need curbside recycling, but I definitely want a facility in Blue Springs to take my recyclables to.  I have used the one off Lee's Summit Rd until it closed and I have used the Independence square.  Lately, I make the drive to Grain Valley where I have met other Blue Springs residents and we always wonder when BS will get on board.  

Mike Smith

7/10/2008 1:28:28 AM #

Two things have to happen before recycling will be successful in Blue Springs. 1. It has to be convienent to the citizen. If it is too much trouble the vast majority will not participate. The busy lives we lead today require a level of convienence. 2. It has to be encouraged and endorsed by businesses and the city alike. It needs to be a community effort with attainable goals. The disposal industry has to be a partner and they will not if it costs them instead of pays them.

Randy

7/10/2008 2:23:04 AM #

Hi, Jeff!  Bob Fasl emailed me re this recycling article.  FYI  EWS is launching a curbside recycling effort which began this week at Lake Tapawingo and Lake Lotawana.  We will offer it to our contracted home associations by Sept, to the subscription customers by late 2008.  We are excited about it and have received a load of great feedback.  Call me if questions.  220-3227.  M.

maureen york

7/10/2008 3:24:21 AM #

Please add this valuable service, as I know my family would recycle weekly if this was provided.  This is SO important for our landfills and to just be more mindful that not everything is trash!  

april atkinson

7/10/2008 5:17:04 AM #

The reason that I'm writing this is because of conflicting opinions and lack of solid information about the value of recycled items of all types, AND the fact that several recycling questions were on the City Survey earlier in 2008, AND the high cost of energy used to make things that can be produced more efficiently from recycled materials. It seems that more people are now aware of how much energy our society wastes in what we throw away.

The City survey questions basically asked "how much would you pay for recycling" without any regard to how much money the recycling efforts would recover. It sounds like a one-way proposition, or something with opportunity for improvement as they say.

(While writing this I did find some prices for recycled materials by searching for "scrap" instead of "recycle", and also "solid waste", so it appears that some information is out there after all. It appears there is an entire industry and established trading exchanges to set the prices. See: http://www.recycle.net/price/. The categories are: Metal, Plastic, Paper, Electronics, Glass Automotive, and the most important one, Municipal Recycling, which opens up an extremely large resource list with about every type of material one could imagine, by clicking on individual categories within the major ones.)

An EnviroStar representative made a short pitch to our homeowners association for paying for recycling in conjunction with the transfer station project on Pink Hill. He said they would recycle paper and plastics and metals, but would not take glass because "there was no market", meaning glass would still go to the landfill. This stuck me as "odd". (Using the reference mentioned above the price was $4.50 to $48.00 per ton for glass of various kinds, so it appears the representative was incorrect by saying there is "no value" for glass--just that they didn't want to bother with it.)

I also attended a MARC meeting about land fills and asked the question, "What is the going price for recycled commodities?" and received no answer, which indicated that a.) they didn't know, or b.) they were there only to discuss landfill issues, not how to prevent them from filling up in the first place. Recycling was mentioned, but no one knew how much revenues would help to offset any costs.

San Francisco's recycling efforts on Pier 39 indicate that the city recovers between 45% and 50% of the recycling cost. That is a tourist area and I don't know how much of the city's recycling is brought there. It appears that trash pickup and waste disposal expense is reduced as well.

We read that 360 Vodka at McCormick uses 100% recycled glass in their bottles and pays $1 per bottletop for return, and ground glass is used in products, and plastics are ground and used to make new pellets, and the newspaper is recycled (like we do at churches and schools), and the tires are used in roads, plastic bags, and the dirt, trees, wood, yard waste, and concrete, etc., all has value as an alternative as a raw material or dumping in a land fill. I read that Gallo makes 900 million glass bottles a year using recycled glass.

The problem is that the actual value is hard to determine. It seems no one wants to acknowledge that here might be justification for recycling in addition to the positive effects on the environment and the economy. It "sounds like" that trash pickup industry wants the schools, churches and cities to provide free raw materials so they can get 100% of the profit from selling the raw materials on the market while stressing the "save-the-planet" and "Go-Green" stories.

Maybe someone at the city knows how to find out how much recycled products are worth on the market. They have to be worth something, and one would think as the cost of energy used in the production of new products continues to rise, that the values or recycled material would increase as well. Based on what I saw on the Municipal Recycling Coordinators web site, it looks like there are people out there who have an in-depth knowledge of the topic.

Maybe it would make sense in the future to contact someone other than the disposal companies or MARC when considering recycling efforts in Blue Springs? If the City knew more about the topic and the value of recycled materials and how to sell the various commodities on the market instead of relying on trash companies, the citizens might benefit.

Here are some Internet references on how some recycling works:
Trex Decking: www.trex.com/.../ENVIRONMENTALLYFRIENDLY.ASPX

Municipal Recycling Efforts: http://www.epa.gov/garbage/recycle.htm (interesting that there are 4,500 product categories)

http://www.amrc.ca/ (municipal recycling coordinators association)

enewsusa.blogspot.com/.../...ecycling-efforts.html (51 page GAO report on Municipal solid waste recycling)

http://www.ecofootage.com/09-02.html (selling video footage of recycling processes)


I started taking a magazine published by National Geographic ($15 per year -- http://www.thegreenguide.com/), called Green Guide. Click on this link to see the current issue on-line www.thegreenguide-magazine.com/.../

One of the the things in the current issue of the magazine that really makes sense is: "This May, Wal-Mart started selling only double-concentrated liquid laundry detergents (a move it says will save more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic and 125 million pounds of the cardboard used in shipping)." The new style of gallon milk jugs at Wal-Mart and Costco are the same thing.

Pretty impressive way to stop trash going into a landfill at the source. Wal-Mart and Costco have the "clout" to make it happen. They save freight, and the world saves energy and landfill space. Now if we could just get a nickel to take our empties back like in the good old days...

In the end, this appears to be a large project with a lot of opportunity and a lot of benefit and a lot less trash to pick up because we have a place to take it to be recycled and the city is making money from the effort!

Jim Hoel

Jim Hoel

7/10/2008 6:35:09 AM #

Please think more about this valuable service, as I know my family would take advantage of this service if it were provided. As of now I take in in my car once a month and it tends to be a chore.  It would be much easier if I could just therow it in a bin to be removed weekly!  This is SO important for our landfills and to just be more mindful that not everything is trash!
Thanks!!!!

Krista

7/10/2008 10:06:35 AM #

Blue Springs absolutely needs a curb side recycling program.  I would support it 100%.

SC

7/10/2008 10:54:12 AM #

I am also very concerned about recycling, and why Blue Springs does not offer it.  I have lived in Blue Springs almost my entire life, but if something isn't done about this I wouldn't encourage my kids to do the same.  Recycling is just common sense.  From the research I have done, the average American throws away 7.5 lbs of garbage everyday.  The population increases everyday.  The gross land area decreases everyday.  Pretty soon with more people, more trash, and less land what will happen?  Also people need to think about items such as plastics that never degrade.  Some plastics just breakup in to individual molecules that will always be here.  I watched a video about the north pacific gyre where the samples they take out of the water are 1000 to 1 plastic to water.  That is just ridiculous.  

Recycling can help though. Last year the amount of energy saved from recycling aluminum and steel cans, plastic PET and glass containers, newsprint and corrugated packaging was equivalent to:

• The amount of electricity consumed by 17.8 million Americans in one year.
• 29% of nuclear electricity generation in the U.S. in one year.
• 7.9% of electricity generation from fossil fuels in the U.S. in one year.
• 11% of the energy produced by coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
• The energy supplied from 2.7% of imported barrels of crude oil into the U.S.
• The amount of gasoline used in almost 11 million passenger automobiles in one year.

That's a huge amount and consider that our nations composting and recycling rate is only about 33%.  Please Blue Springs do something about recycling.  So my kids don't have to live on a trash mountain, like the 1/2 million dollar homes going up next to Sunny Vale middle school.

Pete

7/10/2008 3:41:42 PM #

I can't believe I have to drive to Grain Valley, Independence or Lee's Summit every weekend to recycle. I'm spending a lot of $4.00 a gallon gas!!  Since when did Grain Valley pass up Blue Springs as a city of the future? Why in the world doesn't Blue Springs have a recycling center? Are you kidding me? Grain Valley has one before us??? We have plenty of empty buildings and lots on 7 Highway. Come on City Council. Let's see some progress!!!!!!

DKH

7/11/2008 2:37:22 AM #

First I want to point out that EWS (Envirostar Waste Services) is taking the ball and running with it.  Thank you Maureen for letting us know this.  It takes just one small push to get a ball running but to get curbside recycling, it takes a bulldozer like the folks of  EWS and voices of the citizens of this community.  So please feel free to step forward and let the Honorable Mayor Carson Ross know how you feel.  You should also inform your District Representatives.  Thank you Blue Springs!  Now get out there and push!

Bob Fasl

7/13/2008 10:28:27 PM #

In case you didn't see Saturday's KC Star article (07-12), I've summarized it here.

There are several important insights here assuming that Kansas City can actually build the facility.

The article did not say how the $46 million cost was to be financed. Nor did the article say why it would cost $46 million to build (that is $306 per square foot) , what type of equipment would be in the 150,000 facility, or where it would be located, what type of zoning the facility would be, or if non-KC residents could participate, or if it was for trash companies only, etc.

Maybe there will be more information available later. At least it is encouraging to see some activity taking place in our area.

- First municipal facility in the country to handle trash disposal AND recycling at the same building.
- Generation of an estimated $5 million profit annually through fees and resale of materials
- Glass recycling will be done -- "area companies now go out of state for their glass"
- Waste can be turned into renewal energy or even fuel

The article did not indicate what types of materials would be accepted for recycling or mention hazardous waste in any form.

Michael Shaw is manager of the city's solid waste operations.

DeAnn Smith is the reporter.


Jim Hoel

Jim Hoel

7/16/2008 5:34:02 PM #

*Recycling is a responsibility all citizens owe to this earth & it's future for our children...  MANY items can be recycled, batteries, light bulbs, electronics, tennis shoes..., not just the usual items we think of to recycle.  Blue Springs government must perform it's civic duty to the citizens and develop a recycling center as soon as possible.  I would like them to be the front runner, setting the example for a change, instead of being behind the game. This should be a priority for the use of our tax dollars.  Bridging the Gap is a well development recycling program that would be glad to provide information & assistance.

I also believe all businesses have a responsibility to provide recycling receptacles & to recycle these items.

In the mean time, the closest recycling center for Blue Springs residents is located on Colbern Road east of 7 highway @ the grade school.  The center is open the 2nd full weekend of every month 8a-4p.  They accept aluminum, tin cans, mixed paper, paper board, plastics.

The closest glass recycling is located @ the Lee's Summit recycling center @ their landfill off 291 on Hamblen Road.

The Bridging the Gap recycling center @ Bannister Mall site offers the largest variety of items recycled but is farther away.  You could save items for when you are going near that area.

Let's be the green city of Jackson County!

Jennifer

9/20/2008 6:34:04 PM #

Would it be offensive to place your trash and recyclables at the curb?

Bob Fasl