April 23, 2011
Saturday

There is a small group of hardy Ketchikan residents who routinely salvage electronics, copper, brass, etc. from the Ketchikan Landfill. Recent changes in the rules are curtailing their activities and their access. It would seem to me that they provide a service in reducing the landfill waste and providing a benefit to the community by not only providing economical usable electronics that would otherwise have been dozed under but by bringing money back into the community by recycling copper, brass, etc..

Alaska does not have recycling centers as such, because it doesn't make economic sense. We do not have cheap labor, cheap power, or cheap transportation, but we do have initiative. Some of these people survive on their recycling efforts and/or supplement their Social Security retirement incomes as well as enhance the lives of the elderly and all those who receive the recycled products.

It would seem to me that we should not only allow them to help the environment and the community with their recycling efforts, but encourage them.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Our own business has benefited greatly from our maintenance man's thrift and proclivity for recycling.

Sincerely,

Pam Thornlow
Narrows Inn
Ketchikan, AK