US zero waste practice affirms local recycling

The experience of several communities in Massachusetts which have benefited in the past three years from a grant program for "recycling-based community economic development" should further encourage the local recycling business for all sorts of used or discarded but valuable non-biodegradable waste resources.

These fast-expanding activities also provide very good reasons for discouraging incineration in view of the recent, widely questioned ruling of the Supreme Court that the ban against incineration under the Clean Air Act is not absolute.

The Chelsea Center for Recycling and Economic Development of the University of Massachusetts, through the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance/Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) group e-mail, recently informed the public that the concept of "finding value in the local waste stream" is "starting to catch on as more and more communities see the economic potential in discovering which company’s trash might be another firm’s feedstock…"

In the Philippines, the recycling business has been around for a long time, probably even earlier than World War II when students temporarily forced out of school learned to make soap and other household necessities – as these had become scarce or very expensive – from used materials.

Meanwhile, the more enterprising ones gathered scrap iron and such materials from the war debris, and sold these to certain industries for a profit.

Today, the Philippine recycling enterprise is catching up with the standards of an increasingly competitive global environment, which, at the same time, is also getting more conscious of environmental conditions. Hence also, the clamor for clean production technologies for which those in recycling are among the best practitioners.

One local example of a globally competitive recycling firm that is also a model for clean production is Printing Images CtC Inc. (Makati office/Jay dela Paz, 895-4994; Subic Bay Freeport Zone, 047-2526012; 0916-3053244).

Printing Images CtC Inc. recycles an average of 50,000 empty inkjet cartridges every month, which it buys from other companies, institutions and individuals. The company sells its quality, remanufactured inkjet cartridges to various buyers in Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and some parts of Asia. It is also a member of the International Imaging Technology Council.

"Recycling empty inkjet cartridges has surely given us good business," said company president Norbert Grimm. "But it makes us feel even better knowing that we prevent danger from accumulating in the landfills or dumpsites where the toxic plastic and metal that make up the inkjet cartridges might otherwise end up, poisoning the environment."

Today, wastes from computers that are constantly being upgraded, rendering the previous models obsolete, are among the biggest threats to the environment.

Grimm is encouraging the public to turn in their empty inkjet cartridges because the demand for their products abroad continues to increase and they are still short of supply.