Partner with non-profits for manufacturing using waste materials
As the landfills are all filling up, create manufacturing opportunities in partnership with non-profits using waste. Examples: waxed produce boxes make enviro-friendly fire logs; so do recycled newspapers; plastics can be mixed and molded into playground equipment and park benches
Sue Moen
shared this idea
-
HelenS
commented
Good idea to encourage use of recycled materials in manufacturing... but there might be some complexities here. The main question is what would be the appropriate role for the City here? Aside from regulatory role (incentives through zoning, business licensing, etc) the City might use its buying power to "pull" markets for recycled products -- but not likely that a non-profit could supply products in volumes consumed by the city. And in any case, I'm not sure these (fire logs, plastic park benches) are natural outlets for social enterprise -- aside from the fact that they have environmental trade-offs embedded in them. Should the City and our non-profit sector be spending public resources helping the plastic industry figure out how to get rid of old plastic?