Saturday, June 02, 2007

To be recycled or not- Styrofoam

Since I moved into my new apartment I have been trying to recycle and in the process trying to encourage my roommates to as well. When I first brought up the subject I was told that we should wait until everyone was home to have a small meeting so there wouldn´t be any confusion. There seemed to be a lot of concern about confusion. When we met we set up pails for paper, organic, miscellaneous waste, plastic/metal and glass. After a couple days I noticed there was indeed some confusion. To help I decided to make some coloured arrows to identify the containers. I chose the same colours as the plastic bins that we have in the street in front the apartment: blue for paper, green for glass, yellow for plastic and then invented orange for organic and red for garbage. I kept finding aluminum foil mixed in the paper bin, so I decided to ask about it. That is when I found out the ´paper´ issue was actually a language issue because in Spanish aluminum foil is called ´papél aluminum´ or aluminum paper. At that point we also cleared up the fact that organic products are not separated in Lugo, but they are in other parts of Galicia, so we eliminated an arrow. I think they must think I am obsessed about the environment and I tried to explain that when in doubt to opt for the miscellaneous garbage bin.

The next concern that has arisen is the question of styrofoam and on this topic one of my roommate´s and I are opposed. I stand that it is not recyclable because I have never heard of it being recyclable and David argues that it is because it often has a recycling symbol on it. I didn´t know who to ask so one day I decided to go to the city hall with a small styrofoam tray in my backpack. I wasn´t quite sure of the name in Spanish, so I thought having an example would help. At the Ayuntamiento a friendly man spoke with me for a while and then directed me to another city administration building. When the man started to describe its location I immediately said ´oh! the building with a statue of a horse and a zebra in the parking lot´. Sometimes I have a strange sense of bearings, but what is stranger yet is the placement of these statues between parked cars.

In any case my styrofoam tray and I continued on our mission and inside I took a ticket for the citizens concerns counter and waited. About 15 minutes later I got to ask my question and was sent to the third floor to the environment department. They had no idea either and gave me some coloured pamphlets and suggested I contact the company Ecoembes. I went to the library and looked at the website but it wasn´t very clear. When I got home I explained my enquiries and my roommate said he would phone, but he still hasn´t gotten around to it yet. Most people here seem to be of the opinion that because of the cost of recycling all waste is burnt regardless if it is sorted or not.

1 comment:

Ken Ohrn said...

Hi Katie:

In Vancouver, we have curbside recycling at most, if not all, homes and apartments -- at our house, we use two bags and one box.

One bag for newsprint.

One bag for 'other' paper.

A blue box for bottles, cans and plastics.

Styrofoam is not recycled here; it goes in the regular garbage. Plastics marked 1, 2, 4, or 5 are recycled.

I had a bunch of styrofoam to get rid of one day recently, and spent an hour chasing this topic. Generally, it is not recycled much anywhere that Google reaches.

Vancouver recycling is genuinely recycled; and I'd bet a little money that your local recycling is also genuine. As I understand it, there is a financial incentive for the recycler and their customers, product manufacturers, who can get cheaper materials this way.

I suspect that your Spanish town's perception is one of those self-serving myths that allows believers to ignore the effort required to recycle. How very convenient for them.

Yours in cynicism.

Ken.