Recycling programs need dose of skepticism

By now you’ve heard about the single-stream recycling scandal out of Fort Smith. Fort Smith has more than a recycling problem. Trust has been broken and that’s a lot harder to fix than reworking your recycling system. I invite you to ask your aldermen and the top brass at City Hall how they would handle such a predicament.

Our top brass here in Fayetteville include those six-figure earners, Mayor Jordan, City Attorney Kit Williams, and Chief of Staff Don Marr. These are the folks with whom the buck stops, with whom our public trust lies. What would they do if they found out recycling was being collected but not really getting recycled?

Would they make one person the scapegoat? I mean, seriously, do you think only one person knew Fort Smith’s recycle trucks were headed for the landfill? Which is more important, telling the public only what they want to hear (convenience) or providing the end-users with clean materials they are excited to receive because they can actually use them as feedstock to make new products? That means using a collection method that keeps recyclables segregated and uncontaminated.

This is a conversation that needs to occur in every community in America that has a recycling program. That is, if honesty matters. The only people who will tell you Fort Smith is an isolated incident are those who are naive, inexperienced in recycling, incompetent or in cahoots.

There’s a lot of mischief makers in recycling. Anyone who doesn’t know that ought not be making decisions about recycling programs.

LOUISE G. MANN Fayetteville