LETTERS
Solutions to plastic trash
Thank the lobbyists
Bravo to the Chronicle for promoting more awareness in order to reduce the huge amounts of can and bottle litter in Texas [see the June 25 editorial "Two words: less plastic / Unthinking use of plastics, particularly water bottles, is catching up with us."].
Why doesn't Texas have a bottle bill? Just see who benefits: the bottle manufacturers, the bottling companies, the beverage industry? I don't know, but I'll bet all of these have well-paid lobbyists. I know who doesn't benefit: you, me, the environment, wildlife.
A bottle bill is a no-brainer, so why have the politicians sided with the lobbyists?
And how about cleaning up another nasty trash problem: a cigarette butt bill. Put a 5-cent deposit on each butt and it will stop most smokers from littering. Smokers who can't stop throwing their butts on the ground can at least feel good about providing a chance for people to earn some cash by collecting butts.
JOHN FRICKER
Taylor Lake Village
Toronto changed
The Chronicle's June 25 editorial "Two words: less plastic" and the article "Litter choking Mexico streets / Activists say public isn't only culprit – leaders and companies are also culpable" appear to be about different issues. But while Mexico's unsanitary eyesore is created by lax standards, the piles of garbage bags left by Houston residents at the curb twice every week to be magically whisked away makes our own lax standards of low recycling, reusing and reducing invisible.
If our garbage were dumped in the street, strong measures for reduction would be taken and attitudes would change quickly.
Houston reminds me of what Toronto was like before its garbage crackdown several years ago. Toronto faced a looming garbage crisis that was precipitated by strong groups of environmentalists and residents who rejected northern wilderness dumping sites.
However, while no Canadians would take the Toronto trash, Michigan was more than willing — for a fee — so (insanely) Toronto's garbage is shipped to the United States by truck convoy.
To forestall the trash disaster that would no doubt occur when the American neighbors woke up and smelled the garbage, Toronto implemented intensive composting programs and stepped up the existing recycling agenda.
All households receive a raccoon-proof, heavy-duty composting bin, into which goes organic food waste, cat litter, pet droppings, disposable diapers, flower arrangements, tissues, meat wrapping paper, napkins and paper towels.
Garden waste is a separate regular pickup. It's all composted into clean, nutrient-rich fertilizer for use on city gardens and parks with any excess distributed back to residents.
Compounding the incentive to compost and recycle was a reduced garbage pickup. Further, the garbage reduction program had a mysterious effect on people. Instead of the predicted illegal dumping and militant noncompliance, citizens got behind the plan.
It made reducing garbage a kind of sport and inspired changes beyond the scope of the program — such as taking cloth bags to the grocery store, purchasing reusable cups for take-out coffee, using only recycled paper products and so on. It caused us to think twice before buying something disposable. Maybe it could work here, too.
I wonder, is Houston ready?
SHEILA McGRAW
Friendswood
Aluminum cans, too
The Chronicle's editorial about the need to reduce plastic waste was timely and on the right track, but it fell short in several respects.
First, while it mentions the positive impact of having bottle deposits in other states, it stopped short of calling for a bottle deposit law in Texas.
Second, our trash problem includes aluminum cans and glass bottles as well as plastics, all of which are recycled at far higher rates in bottle deposit states.
Americans trash about 50 billion aluminum cans a year.
Recycling these would provide close to a million tons of aluminum, offsetting the need to mine and ship bauxite, and with huge energy savings in melting scrap, compared to refining new metal.
PAUL GONIN
Galveston
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4919585.html
