In the years after my 1997 vision at Orman Dam, a quest for redemption overtook me.
I pursued numerous concepts nearly simultaneously. A recycling initiative that would look much like Rapid City's Material Recovery Facility does today would have been based in Lead where the mining infrastructure vacated by Homestake's closure would be adapted. Metals, paper, plastics, glass, the whole schmear.
The Janklow administration, right?
But this morning's trip through South Dakota's media shithole reveals that the Black Hills region is still struggling with the same challenges.
I've preached this for going on forty years.
It takes trucks, tub grinders and balers dedicated to specific materials on a regional scale.
There should be a kitchen appliance that turns plastic packaging back into petroleum for use as a stove fuel. The US has thousands of mountains of glass cullet from the municipal waste stream just waiting to be repurposed: Japan recycles nearly 100% of her glass.
We sell millions of tons of salvage material to India and Asia to be recycled while tearing up our own ground mining for virgin minerals while steel and plastics, that could be petroleum, are buried in landfills.
I pursued numerous concepts nearly simultaneously. A recycling initiative that would look much like Rapid City's Material Recovery Facility does today would have been based in Lead where the mining infrastructure vacated by Homestake's closure would be adapted. Metals, paper, plastics, glass, the whole schmear.
The Janklow administration, right?
But this morning's trip through South Dakota's media shithole reveals that the Black Hills region is still struggling with the same challenges.
Currently, the curbside recycling program does not accept paper, cardboard and plastic bags, for example. While the city does provide a few drop-off sites for paper and cardboard, it does not recycle plastic bags at all. Also, recycling bins are not available at apartment complexes, which are popping up at a greater rate lately.Read more at the Rapid City Journal.
Where recycling falls in terms of priorities for the city is among the topics the Spearfish City Council plans to discuss during an upcoming strategic planning session Wednesday. “We’re looking at a variety of ways to increase recycling efforts in Spearfish,” City Administrator Mike Harmon said Jan. 4. “We haven’t found a good solution yet, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped looking.”Read that at the Black Hills Pioneer.
I've preached this for going on forty years.
It takes trucks, tub grinders and balers dedicated to specific materials on a regional scale.
There should be a kitchen appliance that turns plastic packaging back into petroleum for use as a stove fuel. The US has thousands of mountains of glass cullet from the municipal waste stream just waiting to be repurposed: Japan recycles nearly 100% of her glass.
We sell millions of tons of salvage material to India and Asia to be recycled while tearing up our own ground mining for virgin minerals while steel and plastics, that could be petroleum, are buried in landfills.
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