Utah Recycling Sluggish
By Michelle Lizon
- 19 Feb 2008
NewsNet - News from the Y
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/67504
George Goddard, one of Utah's first recyclers in the 1800s, went door-to-door collecting rags that would be turned into paper and used for issues of the Deseret News. Although he was fairly successful, many residents stood in their narrow doorways empty-handed. They had creative ways of telling him "no," so Goddard began to record their responses.
"I'm too economical to have any - I make all my rags into carpets," "You give so little for them, it don't pay for the soap and trouble of washing them" and "Call next week, I've got a big sack full, but I'm too busy whitewashing to look after rags now."
Many Utah residents still fall into some of these categories today. Some recycle, some say they don't have the money or the time, while still others have never thought twice before tossing their cans into the trash.
As more Americans become environmentally conscious, Utah lags far behind many states in the percentage of waste recycled by its residents.
Utah generates around 3,760,000 tons of waste per year. Only about 19 percent of that is recycled, while the rest is dumped into more than 60 growing landfills that dot the state.
But no government department in Utah is keeping track of how much is recycled, since state law does not require it, and the EPA only has records that are voluntarily submitted.
However, Zero Waste America did collect the data. What is Zero Waste America? In their most recent report they discovered how much states recycle, while considering factors such as waste created, imported and exported and population. They ranked Utah as the state with the fifth worst waste management in the United States.
Recycling only costs about $5 per month, so why aren't Utahans as green-savvy as residents from states like New Jersey or Washington that recycle nearly half of their waste each year?
Although policy varies from city to city in Utah, most do not offer recycling services nor require them, leaving the responsibility up to citizens. Utah's Department of Environmental Quality is only responsible for administering recycling programs for two items - tires and used oil.
Like Utah, recycling is not mandatory in all of Washington's cities either, but the state does have intensive programs to motivate its citizens and keep track of the state's waste trail from start to finish. Government employees cover specific areas, ranging from plastics to aluminum, with several people focused solely on educating schools about recycling.
In many of Utah's cities, there is no government representative or program to advertise the recycling of non-hazardous waste or evaluate if it's happening.
With citizens' lack of enthusiasm for the three R's, many private organizations and recycling activists in Utah are bent on showing people the pros of recycling and the cons of tossing everything in a bag for the garbage truck.
Last summer, Nathalie Staffler, a BYU student in the clincial social work master's program, went door-to-door to encourage Provo residents to recycle, much like Utah's first recycler.
"We found out that people are either not aware there is recycling available, or they think it is expensive to recycle - a myth," Staffler said. "It only costs $5 per month. With a household of six people, that represents not even a dollar per person per month."
Residents can sign-up for curbside recycling in many of Utah's cities through private companies such as Waste Management. In places like Provo and Orem residents can pay for a 90-gallon can to throw most of their recyclable items into. They don't have to sort it and it's usually emptied every other week.
If more residents started recycling, the benefits could even flow into more jobs for the state. It takes far more hands to recycle cans, paper, plastics and other trash than it does to bury it. Landfilling 10,000 tons of waste creates only six jobs, while recycling the same amount of waste creates 36 jobs, according to Earth 911, a national environmental resource.
Recycling also helps ease the strain on natural resources. Americans are throwing away about 42 million newspapers each day, while at the same time nearly two million trees are being cut down in the United States each day.
"Each town has the potential to become more sensitive and respectful toward the land that hosts them," Staffler said. "There must be a mutual give and take between humans and Mother Earth."
