There is a lot of talk about how the US economy will emerge from recession. One thing is sure, the manufacturing sector in the US is still sluggish. The question is, will it continue to crawl along, fall back into recession or bounce out quickly? According to an article in Recycling Today, over a third of manufacturers and steel service centers surveyed believe we will see a fall back before we see full recovery. So, what are your thoughts?

When it comes to recycling metals, it is a good idea to have some basic knowledge of how recyclers separate metals. That way, you can get the most for your scrap. This article is a pretty good primer on basic metal sorting. Apparently, there will be additional information posted so stay tuned.

You would think that with plants to handle plastic recycling located right in North Carolina, the state would have a very high plastic bottle recycling rate. However, this article states that less than 20% of the plastic bottles are recycled. I’m not dissing on North Carolina’s citizens at all, it’s simply a statement that getting people to recycle plastic is difficult, even when plants are located so close.

Some questions that came to my mind include what is the state doing to ensure that bottles don’t end up in the landfill? Does all trash in North Carolina go through a transfer station with sorters to keep the bottles out? Will more people just dump them illegally? Is the state providing some sort of bottle collection program to make it easy on consumers to recycle them?

The law certainly has merits and I hope it is successful at increasing the recycling rate. I also hope it doesn’t lead to illegal dumping or other such nonsense.

I don’t get it. Here we are trying to get biofuel vehicles mainstream, electric vehicles are scheduled to come off assembly lines next year, and hydrogen-powered vehicles have just faltered off to the side. Now, all of a sudden, car companies are going to have a network of fueling stations ready to service hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2015? And, over 1 million miles have already been logged in the Chevy Equinox fuel-cell car? What’s going on here?

While all of this is great for emission reduction, think about some of the problems we face. If we transform too quickly to a society of electric cars, we face too large hurdles – electricity supply being well short of the demand and lack of recharging facilities. Biofuel faces the same lack of fueling stations as well as supply problems. Now, add hydrogen to the mix and neither consumers or car companies will know what to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I think hydrogen fuel cell cars are a fabulous idea too long in the making. It’s just that the cost to build the infrastructure for three different technologies will be astronomical and what it leaves is rural Americans holding the short end of the petroleum stick since they will be the last to get refueling/recharging stations for any of those technologies.

I guess it doesn’t matter how “Cash For Clunkers” programs are set up, they seem to run into problems. But what could anybody expect from a government-run program.