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Is recycling sacred in California?

If you've read through Michele Raymond's report on the upcoming battle over plastic containers and recycling in California (see p. 44), you recognize you're reading a piece that originates from someone with a pro-recycling bias.

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Raymond, however, is mostly an objective reporter, and she contacted some manufacturers, although they declined to talk on the record.

If her account of the behavior of all sides in California is on target, most all parties seem to have drawn "lines in the sand." There simply doesn't appear to be much negotiating going on. Instead, the representatives of most parties have been posturing about their positions, about what they will accept and what they won't. This doesn't bode well for movement toward real accommodations. Fortunately, there are several months before the issue reheats when legislators reconvene in Sacramento. Perhaps winter will help cool down the rhetoric, and the emotions.

What most concerned me is that what little debate there is seems to be structured around "industry" vs everyone else, including government officials, environmentalists, recyclers and waste haulers. And blow molders in California have told Raymond that they're currently caught between the proverbial rock of having some customers using recycled plastics, and the hard place, other customers adamantly opposed to use of recycled content. So business dictates they keep a low profile.

In the fall of 1999, it's easy to say that push hasn't yet come to shove on this legislation, so there's still time for negotiation and compromise. And that's probably true. But while there may be time to get that done, there is virtually no inclination to do this because the posturing of the participants has dissipated the good will that should accompany the start of discussion.

Part of the problem may be geography. Most nonCalifornians experience this statewide issue rather infrequently and from a notable distance. When you read Raymond's piece, note where most of the "industry" spokespeople call home, vs where the other side is located. The representatives of industry are association executives almost exclusively from the East Coast. The proponents, on the other hand, hail from Sacramento, Santa Rosa or other California locations.

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