Where's the Money...

 In a time of big changes I note a local change. The City of Lufkin Recycle policy changed. The city will no longer pick up curbside recycle which they provided bins for. Budget concerns caused by the  Covid 19 impact were the reason but a search for past local news stories indicates the program has had problems with rising rates for customers, contaminated bins and general public disinterest since 2008. Personally I think we need recycle and I since I live outside the city I am glad that drop off recycle which I use for paper, plastic jugs and cooking oil continues. I sell any aluminum or metal. I barely make one kitchen sized trash bag a week. 

Along with drop off remaining the city has opened recycling up to any private companies that wish to take the service over. Customers will be allowed to keep the bin at a $5 charge. A few years ago I read a book, "Junkyard Planet" that was about the global recycle industry. The book is a few years old and the game has changed a bit but here is the description blurb from Amazon:

"When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday's newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don't want and turn it into something you can't wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter-veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner-travels deeply into a vast, often hidden, 500-billion-dollar industry that's transforming our economy and environment.

Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to recycling factories capable of processing a jumbo jet's worth of trash every day. Along the way, we meet an international cast of characters who have figured out how to squeeze Silicon Valley-scale fortunes from what we all throw away. Junkyard Planet reveals how “going green” usually means making money-and why that's often the most sustainable choice, even when the recycling methods aren't pretty.

With unmatched access to and insight on the waste industry, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America's garbage and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of how the way we consume and discard stuff brings home the ascent of a developing world that recognizes value where Americans don't. Junkyard Planet reveals that Americans might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash."

Apparently big money is in recycle. No telling how much I contributed to the wealth of the third world when at a city wide electronics recycle I dropped off all the old reel to reel tape players and movie projectors that had belonged to Cathy's dad. Probably recycled into missile guidance systems by some country that didn't already have them.   

Recently during a stop off in St. Louis I noticed these cans everywhere downtown. I also noticed in a food court area, where every customer was issued at their expense paper, plastic and organic food material there were receptacles to dispose of whatever part you did not consume. If a city this size can recycle what ever a consumer is using in the moment why can't we recycle household items?  

I also saw this nice manhole cover in downtown St. Loo. The Mississippi River ran a few years from here.

We are going to need some of these in East Texas as plans for the construction of a land farm for dumping of fracking waste seem to be on track to continue in the Attoyac River watershed which is already an area of concern due to e. coli contamination from substandard septic systems. 

I think we should have curbside recycle, clean water and efficient septic systems. It's not too much to ask.