Recycling works in recreation.

From abating violence to curtailing drug use to promoting physical fitness, our parks and recreation facilities offer programs and opportunities that our country--specifically our inner cities--cannot afford to lose. Nevertheless, community parks across the country are cutting back services or closing facilities because they have no funding. The fact that parks and recreation facilities are among the first to suffer the blows of the budgetary axe is widely known; how to reverse the trend is the question. One answer comes in rather surprising packaging: recycling.

Just 20 years ago, national campaigns begged Americans to stop littering; today, we have taken this initiative one step further by implementing comprehensive recycling programs in communities across the country. With jurisdictions recovering as much as 60 percent of their waste streams, recycling has proven to be not only a means of diverting waste from landfills and reducing or eliminating the need for incinerators, but data shows that it is actually the most cost-effective means of waste disposal currently available. In addition, recent technological advancements have rendered recycling a means of generating municipal income, as communities begin marketing their collected recyclables to scrap-based manufacturers, who use the materials as a feedstock for production.

Having established recycling as the "conventional wisdom" among solid waste planners, the country is now striving to close the recycling loop by creating viable, consistent markets for collected recyclables. Scrap-based manufacturing answers this need. Entrepreneurs across the country have developed innovative processing and manufacturing technologies, creating myriad products from collected recyclables. From plastic lumber to commercial waste bins, standard office papers to janitorial supplies, weight room flooring to construction materials, what was once seen as waste is now being converted into commercial dollars, increased local tax bases, and industrial jobs.

Jurisdictions that sell their recyclables to manufacturers find that the revenues not only pay for the cost of the community's comprehensive recycling initiative, but often generate a profit as well. In addition, scrap-based manufacturers often establish joint ventures with community development corporations, providing community equity in the enterprise, and sometimes a host-community fee.

The potential impact of scrap-based manufacturing industries on local economies is staggering: A city of one million whose collected recyclables are used as an industrial feedstock can earn an annual $750 in value-added to its local economy, creating as many as 1,800 new jobs. In an era when cities and counties throughout the nation are struggling to cut budgets without losing programs, increase their tax bases without increasing taxes and meet both the environmental and the economic needs of their communities, none can afford to miss this opportunity for environmentally sound industrial expansion.

Just as the manufacturers create a market for collected recyclables, they, too, require a market for their products. U.S. consumers have become increasingly "green," demanding a level of environmental accountability from our manufacturers. The public sector, however, has not matched pace with this consumer awareness. Implementing procurement initiatives at every government level, including park and recreation agencies, is the key to public sector participation, and could provide the necessary financial impetus to not only maintain but improve the financial stability of cities across the country.

Cities and states across the country are enacting minimum scrap-content legislation, which mandates the purchase of items that contain an established minimum of post-consumer recycled materials. Municipalities are buying items manufactured with post-consumer waste, spending an additional percentage (generally five to ten percent) to purchase products with a recycled content rather than those made exclusively from virgin materials. In 1991, Cleveland became the first city in Ohio to mandate a five percent contracting preference for products with recycled content. According to Public Services Director Jeff Tierce, in 1992 the city saved more than $8,500 in the purchase of recycled toilet paper alone. Further, the city's street paving contract was awarded to a company that uses recycled materials, saving Cleveland $252,000 over its previous contract with a firm using virgin materials.

This information seems geared toward economic development or solid waste management officials; what impact could it have on parks and recreation directors? The key is in coordinated local, regional and state procurement efforts. Where procurement policies have not been enacted, park and recreation departments can urge the purchase of scrap-based products. Stuart Strong of the Austin, Texas, Department of Parks and Recreation, says that despite the lack of a specific policy, "The parks and recreation department is researching and testing a variety of products with recycled content."

The department's decision to use chipped rubber safety surfacing on playgrounds in hell of traditional sand or gravel surfaces was based, in large part, on product performance. "Thus far," says Strong, "the surfacing has been in place for six years with no problem. Typically, sand and gravel would have been replaced several times by now." It is such long-term considerations that offset initially higher investments, making recycled products equal or lower in price than their virgin-based counterparts.

Impressive Products

The array of products available for use in park and recreation facilities is impressive--and reaches far beyond bathroom tissues and drawing paper. Imagine, if you will, a park designed to incorporate as many recycled-content products and elements as possible.

You pull into the parking lot paved with glassphalt, a mix of recycled glass and traditional paving materials. That pothole in the corner spot is gone; it was filled over the winter with a new cold-patching material, made from old roofing asphalt, that exceeds federal specifications and holds in both hot and cold weather. Your car is pulled right up to the bumper guard, made of crumbed rubber from old tires.

Walking down the path, you notice the shrubbery has fresh mulch around it to protect it from frost; the mulch is made of wood chips derived from collected yard waste and Christmas trees. You pause long enough to throw some trash into the waste basket, careful to deposit your glass soda bottle in the recycling receptacle; both receptacles, made from rotation-molded recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles (i.e., your recycled two-liter soda bottles), are lined with garbage bags made from recycled film plastics.

Heading to the recreation center, with its new siding made of recycled plastics, you see a group of children emerging from a painting class, proudly displaying masterpieces drawn on 100 percent post-consumer content paper. The class moves toward swing sets that are anchored to the ground by poles made of recycled ferrous metals, with seats made from recycled tires. The playground surfacing is made from 100 percent post-consumer tires.

The center's weight room is lit by 90-watt fluorescent light bulbs that save more than six and one-half cents for every ten hours of use (totalling more than $200 per year per bulb). You admire the new weight room floor, made with 100 percent post-consumer waste, and the acoustical ceiling tile, made with 70 percent post-consumer plastic and paper composite. You work out for 30 minutes, according to the wall clock, also made from 60 percent post-consumer high density polyethylene (HDPE) and 40 percent recovered HDPE plastics (i.e., recycled milk jugs and detergent containers), then go to wash up in the restroom.

The bathroom is furnished with low-flush toilets, reducing water usage by as much as 75 percent. Showers and faucets are equipped with flow-restrictors, reducing water usage from 20 gallons to nine gallons on the average five-minute shower. The toilet paper is made from 100 percent recycled paper, as are the facial tissues and paper towels, with 95 percent post-consumer waste.

Emerging once again, you settle at one of the picnic tables to have lunch. The new table and bench are made of plastic lumber, made of 100 percent recycled content with 100 percent post-consumer HDPE plastics. While munching on your sandwich, you watch a group of third-graders playing soccer, unaware that the goal posts are made from 100 percent post-consumer plastics, as are the fence posts surrounding the park.

The solar-operated sensor lights light the way to your car. As you step in, you notice the road blocked off ahead by orange safety cones with 100 percent recycled content, and wonder--why didn't I take the bus?

Certainly overnight replacement of all park and recreation equipment, supplies and building materials--substituting resource-efficient, environmentally friendly products with maximum post-consumer content--is unrealistic. Nor is it realistic to assume that pro-active procurement initiatives will single-handedly save our cities, or more specifically prevent our local and state parks from closing. What we do know is that full municipal participation in a comprehensive recycling program reduces solid waste management costs. We know, too, that scrap-based manufacturing industries provide a consistent market for collected recyclables, creating industrial jobs and a new tax base for the community. To attract these industries, public sector procurement initiatives--official or unofficial--must be in place. As more money flows into the local economy, fewer programs will be cut, reducing the likelihood of park closures.

Officials Make No Effort

A brief survey of park and recreation officials from communities across the country revealed that few are making substantial efforts to procure items, other than paper supplies, that have a recycled or post-consumer content. Several procurement officials admitted that, unless specifically requested by agency officials, they make no effort to research, much less purchase, materials made primarily with recycled rather than virgin materials, nor do they submit requests for proposals to companies known to manufacture products from recycled feedstock.

No community can afford to forego the economic benefits derived from a closed-loop recycling system, one that not only promotes recycling, but also identifies and establishes markets and end-uses for the collected materials. It takes little more effort than reviewing the Recycled Products Guide or the recycled product section of your supply catalogs before making purchasing decisions, or identifying the scrap-based manufacturers in your region and determining which of their products could be substituted for those virgin-based products you are currently purchasing. Contact other agency officials and enlist their assistance initiating--officially or unofficially--a buy-recycled campaign in your community. Remember--sometimes saving the world starts with saving a small, grassy part of it.