In response to Zach Schlosser’s letter (“Hurting our environment”, Kent Reporter, June 28): His comment is correct in that the free recycling cart is available only to small businesses.
As part of the city contract process in 2010/11 with Republic Services, the city requested that they provide small businesses – so small that they only require a garbage cart instead of a Dumpster, the same free recycling cart that residential households get when they pay for garbage service.
In the past, many of these small businesses did not recycle because they did not produce enough material to make it cost-effective for a recycling vendor to stop there to collect it. Bigger businesses, often have different material to recycle. Recycling is left as an “open market” option, rather than being tied to our contract. This gives the businesses the advantage of getting proposals from a variety of recyclers to get the best price for whatever material they’re recycling and depending on the value of the material, potentially even get paid for it.
Recycling saves resources and dollars in that the cost for recycling is only half of what it costs to dispose of garbage at the landfill. Considering those savings, it is good business to recycle everything possible to reduce the size of that garbage container and reduce cost.
– Tim LaPorte, Public Works director, city of Kent
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