Importance of recycling Published Dec. 3, 2007 By Tech. Sgt. Andrew Teague 20th Civil Engineer Squadron SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. -- Why should people recycle? What's the importance? As a kid, I remember the commercials about not running the water while brushing your teeth; and the one about turning off the light when you leave a room. Those commercials played on the minds of the American populace. These were easy things to do and the message was clear -- if we all pull together we can conserve much needed resources. Well, it worked! Now days it's second nature for us to turn off what is not needed and the same should apply for what we routinely label as trash and toss out. Recycling is really easy. If you've not noticed, our population is growing exponentially and we're gobbling up surface space like it's cool. Those who have been around Sumter for a few years probably noticed the fields that once boasted tall corn now has tall rooftops or strip-malls. Remember when the roads through the "wilderness" were fast ways to bypass the traffic but are now just as congested as the main roads themselves? The city of Sumter, just one little town in this country, needs a landfill 88 acres in size; that's just its surface area. It's dug to a depth and then filled with trash and covered up. If all goes well, once the landfill is closed, in about 13 years, the land will remain unusable for only 30 years. After 30 years, the land will only have limited uses. The problem with filling and covering a landfill is that we've become so efficient at compacting as much waste into a hole the items are not breaking down or biodegrading. I was at a meeting with a fellow Carolina Recycling Association partner who discovered a hot dog dug up from a landfill, was still pliable -- it was 30 years old! The reason she knew it was that old is because it was wrapped in a newspaper. We fly, fight and win. It's the Air Force way, but yet we routinely throw our resources into the ground and cover them up. Something is wrong with this picture. Recycling is important! The very things we throw away, we could actually sell and put money back into the base's coffers. Right now, we are loosing so much money throwing paper away it would make you scream. Ok, for those who can't see past a dollar let's look at office paper in two ways -- wasted and recycled. Shaw purchased more than 7.725 tons of paper from the LCI store in October. Now let's say we use it and dispose of it in the conventional way. That paper cost Shaw about $11,180 or $1,447 per ton. Remember, we used it and disposed of it as waste. Let's tack on the disposal fee of $42 per ton. That paper has cost Shaw $1,490 per ton for a total of $11,512. Stay with me, now that same paper being recycled plays out like this; Shaw purchases 7.725 tons of paper at a cost of $1,447 per ton. We use the paper, but now recycle it. That used paper is purchased from Shaw at $140 per ton. So now it cost us $1,307 per ton or a total of $10,098. That's a monetary savings of $1,413 for one month. This is just one material for one month. Studies have indicated the average landfill across the U.S. is 47 percent paper and paper products. I can't even perceive what that must look like. Improvement is easy. Just call your installation solid waste manager to come evaluate your program. I have lots of experience helping folks assemble programs from the ground up as well as taking an existing program to the next level. I have free recycling containers and I'll even deliver and label them. I will attend roll calls and commander calls. I want audiences big and small. I can help and I'm just a phone call away. For more information concerning recycling, call the solid waste/recycling manager, Tech. Sgt. Andrew Teague at 895-5000 or 895-9998.