By Blair Pollock
Over the past 35 years, since the beginning of public recycling here, our community has heartily embraced this simplest and most popular environmental act.
An early cornerstone of our robust, well-funded and operated system remains the four unstaffed recycling sites that receive over 1,200 tons a year of high quality material. The site at University Place (previously “University Mall”) on Estes Drive in Chapel Hill is the most used of the four and is ABOUT TO BE REMOVED. As of May 31, the site owner, Ram Realty, based in Florida but with an office in Chapel Hill, plans to evict the recycling site as part of their plan to redevelop the mall. There is no reason to do this and every reason to keep the site there. You could contact Ram Realty at (561) 630-6110. Their web site lists Jeff Kurtz and Rachel Russell Krenz as VPs of development in the Carolinas. (No e-mail shown). The local office is at 1480 Environ Way in Chapel Hill. So start with them. Their web page says: “We have the power to make places better; to create places where people want to live and shop’. Hold them to it. There’s no short-term rationale for eliminating this valuable community asset.
IF the site must close, then a ‘second-best’ may be the Town of Chapel Hill property at Legion Road behind hotel Europa that may be a future park or housing site. It could readily and easily accommodate a recycling drop off site- you can see for yourself how much road frontage there is and how level it is. You may wish to contact the Town and inquire about this. Mayorandcouncil@townofchapelhill.org or 919-968-2714.
RECYCLING CREATES WEALTH FROM WASTE, SAVES RESOURCES & ENERGY REDUCES LANDFILLING. ALL OUR RECYCLABLES ARE MARKETED NOT TRASHED.
Thnx! Who used the recycling containers? Wow that has been 200,000 pounds per month! Mother earth and economy benefits from CARDBOARD and aluminum recently (even since China won’t take our cr*p anymore)…Our forests are still wasted on so much, I could write 10 pgs just on that. Yes if the mall businesses there actually used it, or local residents had no place else to recycle; then let’s transition at least with a plan where else to go rather then just STOP a known service like that. It takes WAY more energy to mine and make a new aluminum can than to melt one down. Better yet, ALL states including ours ought to pass a bottle bill.For information about sustainable methods of capturing bottles and cans for recycling via deposits, see bottlebill.org.