Winter warmth in the age of recycling

 One of the drawbacks of the layoff from the newspaper last February didn't become evident until just a few days ago when the pile of fire-starting newspapers dwindled to nothing.  There was always a ready supply of discarded papers to bring home for that purpose, but the pile hasn’t been replenished since then.  It actually takes more newspapers these days.  The shrinking of papers in the era of electronic journalism led one old Alaska hand to complain, "there ain't enough paper in one to start a good fire."

This seemingly endless period of days when the temperature stays between zero and minus 20, ate up the supply left over from last winter pretty quickly.

Faced with building one of those Boy Scout fires with a little teepee of sticks and some tinder made of crumpled up tiny spruce twigs, which was not going to happen, the search began for a new supply.  So, with the temperature up to a warm minus 10 the first stop was the neighborhood transfer station.  The lady there was very helpful, saying, no, no newspaper there, but try the recycling center to which she furnished the map.  A quick perusal showed it was an old map and the center hadn't been where the  map showed for at least three or four years.

A 15-mile trip to the borough landfill led to the center which was just down the road, fortunately. At the center a very pleasant woman said, yes, indeed, there was newspaper available  She pointed the way, produced  a pair of noise suppression ear protectors, a bright orange safety vest and indicated a door that opened into the main plant.  In there after a few shouts back and forth with an also ear-protected forklift driver, he pointed out a pallet filled with already bundled throwaway newspapers.  Better than a treasure chest!

Two of those bundles looked sufficient especially now that a ready supply was just a few miles away, but on the way out that nice woman called and said you have to pay for those.

What?

She must have picked up on that first reaction because she called out the person responsible for the collection.  He quickly began explaining why they charged, mostly, he said it was to keep track of how much material the recycling center has kept out of landfills.

A dollar a bundle didn't seem all that bad, particularly when it was going to such a worthy operation.  What followed was a conversation about all the uses the people had found for recycled materials.  But he hadn't thought of the use of newsprint for starting fires.  He seemed open to the idea of getting one of those rollers and producing newsprint logs.

But he did point this out: From January to September this year the recycling center diverted and processed 1,132 tons of material, sold another 8 tons through the reuse store, like those two bundles of newspaper; and, kept another 300 tons of recovered resources out of the landfill by indirect means.  One of those was material for making building insulation. All in all this little recycling center hidden away in an obscure part of the group of valleys in the borough, kept 1,440 tons of all kinds of refuse out of the landfill.

That and making the fire now warming this little house much easier to build.

END NOTE: For those in the area, the (Matanuska-Susitna) Valley Community for Recycling Solutions plans an open house beginning at 1 p.m. Dec. 21 complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus to explain recycling for the kids.  The date also celebrates two years since the center opened.