| GRN Recycle Talk FAQ Answer |
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 97 11:36 WET From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Recycling in Europe (Nader Hamid)
March 13, 1997
Dear Nader Hamid,
Brussels in 1994 was recycling about 5% of its wastes and incinerating 95%; it targeted glass, plastics bottles, metal cans, paper in door-to-door collection of yellow (paper fraction) bags and blue (packaging) bags including all materials. Clear plastic bags are provided several days before collection and the colored bags are purchased. A total of 4,704 tons of paper, 1834 tons of glass, 218 tons of metal were recycled by the door-to-door scheme and another 6,110 tons of glass by a close-to-home recycling scheme. But this is only for the city of Brussels.
Its funnny that you should have trouble accessing recycling in Belgium, which has been an outspoken defender of the practice; it may be that they don t serve commercial enterprises as many US municipalities don t. I don t claim to know how it is organized or for whom, but I do have contacts to share:
Brusells Institute for Management of the Environment, Gulledell 100, B-1200 Brussels Tel: 2 775 7575
ACEC Noord Research Lab, Dork Noord 5, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Bureau International de la Recuperation, Rue du Lombard 24, BTE, B-1000 Brussels tel: 32 2 514 21 80.
Additionally, here in New England, one of my state colleagues, Lois Hager, Connecticut Dept. of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Waste Management, 165 Capitol Ave, Hartford, cT 06106, spent a year in Belgium and worked with The Association of Cities for Recycling an association of cities with over 500,000 population. She would be an invaluable source.
Also, read the WARMER Bulletin (out of the UK): Tel: 0 1732 368333 or E-mail to wrf@gn.apc.org.
Hope that this helps.
-- Research Library for RCRA