EDITORIAL: City must come clean on its glass recycling program

By John Peck, The Huntsville Times

May 03, 2010, 9:50AM

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. _ Huntsville's Solid Waste Disposal Authority has trashed - pun emphasized - the principles of honesty and responsibility.

For years, the agency that administers the city's highly acclaimed recycling program has steered residents wanting to recycle glass to specially marked dumpsters at a recyclerly in southwest Huntsville.

From there, the old glass was to be delivered to a remanufacturer to turn into new eco-friendly products.

The SWDA is now left red-faced by a dirty little secret that has been revealed. Turns out the glass hasn't been recycled for a couple of years.

At least not in the traditional sense. Instead, it has been burned with other garbage in the city incinerator -  its ash then used as landfill cover.

Thanks for telling us.

What that means is every citizen who dutifully hauled their empty glass containers to Allied Waste's recyclerly off Triana Boulevard - burning their time and their gas - did it all for naught. The glass could just as easily have been tossed in their garbage at home.

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