Letter to the Editor: ORS Should Manage a Sustainable Waste Stream

Dear Editor:

Thank you for your excellent article re. the San Juan County’s Vendor Selection Committee’s meeting about the Solid Waste proposals submitted by Orcas Recycling Services/The Exchange and Cimarron.

My question is: Why is the SJ Vendor Committee thinking Cimarron should be responsible agent for running Orcas’s solid waste system and handling the contract with ORS? In my view, logic seems to dictate it should be other way around!

ORS/The Exchange is local. ORS has a demonstrated commitment to the Orcas community and a history of serving the community. ORS has a thirty year unblemished record…no litigation. It is non-profit, in fact, It contributes money and tangible goods for reuse and good works IN the Orcas community.

And the way a sustainable waste stream works (thus far) is: Have goal of Zero Waste. User sorts and recycles everything that user can–at source– then tips what’s left…Hopefully, less and less! So if Zero Waste is goal, the organization responsible for that directive needs to be the organization that is devoted to maximum recycling and reuse…NOT the one that makes it’s money from hauling waste!!!

I’m an island visitor, working with a number of people in our Salish Sea basin to support thriving communities of all kinds. You all have in your grasp a model system that could be implemented in any small city, town, region of the country for maximum sustainable benefit of all concerned. I encourage you to actually choose it and help it work well for everyone’s benefit!

Sincerely yours,

Anne M. Stadler
Lake Forest Park, WA