by Robert Bryce
Recycling has suddenly become profitable for the City of Austin. In the last
fiscal year, the city got $129,725 for all of the scrap aluminum, newspaper,
glass, and steel collected from city residents. By the end of the city’s
current fiscal year in September, it will have collected an estimated $1.5
million for the sale of those same materials.
The unexpected windfall is the result of surging prices for used paper. The
phrase “if you can rip it, ship it” has become the motto of the used paper
industry. In July of last year, the city got $21 for each ton of recycled
newsprint it collected. Last month, that same ton of newsprint sold for $150.
“We anticipated collecting about $200,000 for our recycled materials for the
1994-95 fiscal year,” says Ron Fuszek, who oversees the sale of the city’s
recycled products. “Already this year, we have collected $1.118 million.”
Used paper prices across the country have surged as newly built
paper mills and de-inking plants compete with each other for newsprint. Earlier
this year, used paper prices topped out at more than $200 per ton before
settling back to their current levels. Austin used to send its paper to a mill
in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. But with the recent opening of the Champion Paper
plant near Houston, Austin has found a closer and much more lucrative outlet
for its paper, since Champion must compete with several other new plants around
the country eager to get the same paper.
“There’s been a fundamental shift in the marketplace due to the
fact that finally all these mills that have been putting in new processing
equipment to handle recycled paper are finished and enough have come on-line so
that demand far exceeds supply,” says Steven Apotheker, a technical editor at
Resource Recycling magazine in Portland, Oregon.
Apotheker says the combination of new mills, reductions of timber
harvest in old growth forests, surging export markets, and a robust domestic
economy have stimulated demand for all types of used paper. “For years, you
couldn’t give telephone directories away. As for junk mail and mixed paper?
Forget about it,” said Apotheker. “Now you are getting $100 to $150 per ton for
that same kind of paper.”
According to Joe Word, of the city’s Solid Waste Services, the
increased revenue from the recycling program will allow the agency to hold the
line on garbage collection fees. At present, the city’s 127,000 residential
customers pay $11.64 per month for garbage and recycling collection. Due to
increased costs of operating the city landfill, Word says, the city had been
planning on raising collection fees by about 85 cents a month. But with the new
revenues, that increase can be avoided, saving each Austin household with city
garbage collection about $11 next year.
With the sharp increases in paper prices, Fuszek says the city has begun
considering a program that would allow homeowners to include mixed office paper
and cardboard with their newsprint. But because mixed paper brings a lower
price than newsprint, Fuszek said, city officials are uncertain about if or
when they will change the program. For now, the city will maintain its current
course and try to upgrade its existing pilot program within city offices to
recycle white office paper.
n
MORE TRASH TALK. Over the past months, several city trash collectors have been
injured by caustic materials that have been left in trash cans. The city
encourages anyone with caustic or hazardous materials – like paint, solvents,
or pesticides – to take them to the city’s hazardous waste collection center at
4411 Meinardus Drive. The site is open Wednesdays from noon-7pm. Questions?
Call 499-2111.
n
HURWITZ GETS SUED BY FDIC. Earlier this month, the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) filed a $250 million lawsuit against Charles Hurwitz, the
Houston-based CEO of Maxxam Corp., for his role in the failure of United
Savings Association of Texas, which costs federal taxpayers some $1.5
billion.
In 1985, with the help of junk bond whiz Michael Milken, Hurwitz took over
Pacific Lumber Co., which owned the largest privately owned stand of virgin
redwood forest on the planet. Hurwitz then directed the company to begin
clear-cutting the redwoods to pay off the junk bonds provided by Milken and his
firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert. Milken ended up in prison for his financial
misdeeds. Now, environmentalists are hoping to put Hurwitz there, as well.
“Surely, the claims in FDIC v. Hurwitz warrant that felony charges be
filed,” said redwood activist Darryl Cherney. In a press release distributed on
the Internet by the Taxpayer Asset Project, Cherney said, “Charles Hurwitz has
swindled a savings and loan, pilfered a pension fund, and ripped off the
redwoods. We say three strikes and you’re out for corporate criminals.
America’s redwood heritage will not be safe until Charles Hurwitz is behind
bars.”
If you want to learn more about Hurwitz and Pacific Lumber, attend a slide
show put on by photographer Doug Thron, who has taken hundreds of photos of the
Headwaters Forest, a vast tract of redwoods owned by Pacific Lumber that the
federal government has offered to buy from Hurwitz. Cherney and others have
also advocated a “debt for nature” swap with Maxxam in return for Hurwitz’s
losses in USAT.
Thron’s photos have been published in numerous magazines and his activities
have clearly upset Maxxam, which has threatened to sue him unless he turns over
all his photos to the company. Thron hasn’t given up the slides and says he has
given 170 slide show/lectures around the country.
Thron’s presentation, sponsored by the Sierra Club, will be held at the First
Unitarian Church, 4700 Grover, at 7pm on Tuesday, September 5.
n
MORE ON THE ESA AND TPWD. In this space two weeks ago, I recounted a possible
shakeup within Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) regarding endangered species
protection and studies on the Barton Springs Salamander. Now, a biologist from
within the department is charging that the agency has repeatedly violated the
Endangered Species Act. On August 20, Dean Keddy-Hector, a zoologist in the
agency’s natural heritage program, sent a letter to Mollie Beattie, the
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Copies were also sent to TPWD
director Andy Sansom, and to Larry McKinney, TPWD’s director of resource
protection.
In the letter, Keddy-Hector writes, “there has been an internal conspiracy to
cover up the impacts of potentially destructive activities which threaten the
continued existence of species such as the San Marcos Wildrice, Fountain
Darter, Black-Capped Vireo, and Golden-Cheeked Warbler and other endangered and
threatened species. This conspiracy has involved direct suppression and
distortion of supportive data, outright fabrication of statements… and
threats to terminate any employee not willing to look the other way.”
Keddy-Hector alleges that:
* TPWD suppressed evidence that water discharged from their fish hatchery in
San Marcos would be detrimental to the San Marcos wildrice and the fountain
darter;
* TPWD tried to suppress evidence showing cattle would harm vireo and warbler
populations at the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan refuge system;
* There was “active harassment” of employees in the Natural Heritage Program,
and;
* TPWD distributed educational materials that understated the range of
habitats occupied by the warbler.
McKinney, when asked for a comment on Keddy-Hector’s charges, initially said
that none of them had any basis. Then he said, “There are a couple of issues in
there that I am looking at, that I am investigating.”
A decision on the future of the Heritage Program will be made at the TPWD
commission today, September 1.
n
FREEPORT-INDONESIA UPDATE. More information continues to come out of Irian Jaya
regarding human rights abuses near the Freeport-McMoRan mine site. The
Australian Council for Overseas Aid, which released a report in April alleging
that 37 local tribal people had been killed at the mine site in the past few
months, just released a report by the Catholic Church of Jayapura, alleging
further brutality against local Irianese people by the Indonesian military,
including executions, torture, destruction of property, and arbitrary arrest.
The Church report alleges that:
* On Christmas Day of 1994, Indonesian military personnel killed a local man
while he was aboard a Freeport bus.
* That same day, three civilians were tortured to death while inside a Freeport
workshop known as Koperapoka.
* On May 31 of this year, 11 local people, including a minister from a local
Protestant church, were shot to death.
The report includes the names of all those killed, tortured, or “disappeared.”
For a copy of the 27-page report, contact the Chronicle. We’ll make one
for you for $5. n
This article appears in September 1 • 1995 and September 1 • 1995 (Cover).