Recycling: Help the Environment; Lower Town Costs; Keep Taxes Lower.

The bottom line is space, particularly space for landfills. There are also intriguing contradictions. Plastic is a by-product of utilizing fossil fuels. If we didn’t use fossil fuels for energy, we wouldn’t have plastic to begin with. Thus recycling plastic is sensible since the resource it is made from is finite.

Investigating this some, it seems that the only financially viable recycling is metals. One can sell scrap metal; no one buys scrap plastic. For recycling to be effective, there has to be a congregate mass of the item such that makes acquiring it easier. So, communities and companies must amass sizeable amounts of “raw” recycled products before re-using them becomes cost effective.

Glass is a particularly useful item to recycle for the purpose of re-use or breaking the glass into small pebble sized items to add to tar to make asphalt. Electronic devices are tricky. There was a time when computers etc could be passed down the line to newer or less fortunate users. Nowadays, with changes in components, not the least of which are the flat screens and a plethora of new ‘toys’ such as iPods, iPads et al. Cellular phones are still ripe for recycling, but the technology is moving so fast and prices reducing that makes a rehab less useful.

For us residents of Swampscott, there is a new incentive to recycle—for reductions in trash collected and increase in recycling the town gets a reduction in costs for trash removal. If for no other reason, we should pull together and reduce the trash. If we can’t make the reductions in expenses for garbage removal, where will we? Fewer policeman, less public works employees, not to mention teachers?

One of the realities of our town of Swampscott is that we are small in space, but a large population per sq. mi. We have little commercial and almost no manufacturing to add to the residential tax base. Thus, a larger cost per resident for municipal services is the result.

The school system accounts for most of the Town budget expenditures. Although the schools are now in better shape physically, the urgent need is for increased math and science students to fill necessary jobs for the future. Money is needed for programs to encourage and support these students, as well as to subsidize any number of student activities.

We have the ocean and a sizeable amount of park and recreation areas. Money is needed to keep up the town parks so they will be useable for the future. Recycling would help with park maintenance. A large percentage of the litter found on our beaches and in our parks is platic drink bottles, cans, etc. If residents were to “take out what they take in” to our recreational spaces, the parks and playgrounds would look better and less money would need to be spent on staff to clean them.

I know this is all a rehash of almost every recycling article ever written. However, there is a new spin: recycle and your tax rates don’t go up so high in the out years.