Restaurants should recycle

One way that Kansas City can become “greener” is to make it mandatory for all restaurants and bars to recycle the cans and bottles that they now dump. The servers would toss the items into bins specific for each category, eliminating secondary sorting at recycling centers. Reducing this waste will slow the need for new landfills.

Kansas City has made the air cleaner to breathe with its smoke-free policy. Now let’s work on the land.

Randy Maddox
Kansas City

Comments

[Stifled Freedom]

"The point I was trying to make, was that it should be up to the business owner to dictate how to run his business. It seems to be a concept that is dying out lately"

True. The business onwer decides how to run his business, but when he discards tons of trash to a municipally-owned landfill, it becomes all of our business how that trash is managed.

[T. Hanson]

The point I was trying to make, was that it should be up to the business owner to dictate how to run his business. It seems to be a concept that is dying out lately.

For the hazard waste example, that is non-related to this whole arguement. Hazardous waste has been proven to kill/injure us. Please show me the example of a paper napkin that has been thrown away that has caused cancer to a family that lived near such an horrible event.

Final call should be up to the business owner. And don't give me the health code argument either. This policy has been shown to harm people's health unknownly which again falls into the Hazmat arguement you stated. If there is direct or indirect harm then yes a business owner should be responsible of telling his patrons that such a problem exists.

[Stifled Freedom]

T Hanson, it does not take that much extra effort. You have not eaten a $10 hamburger yet.

When I go out to eat and must wait for service, I observe....and I quickly realize that the reason for delays is either too many customers or lazy, inefficient restuarant staff....not overwork from discriminating trash placement. We left a restuarant (with $3 hamburgers) just this week without any service while at least 5 staff members stood around and talked in an effort to ignore customers instead of serving them.

By your philsophy, we should just repeal hazardous waste regulations of the 1970s and let industry dump toxic and hazardous chemicals into the river and groundwater again... because its too burdensome for the manufacturer to handle it responsibly.

True it is burdensome, but its worth it. I travel to Thailand every year with my wife (who is Thai). The culture and food there are fantastic. However, the country and cities are a littered, polluted, trashed out mess. She spoke of the beautiful mountains in the north. We went. I did not enjoy it because trash was everywhere. I can drive to the Ozarks and see the same mountains....without the trahs. I am always happy to come home and go fishing or hiking in our well-preseved countryside.

[solomon]

"Green"

Seems I first heard about it from a builder of pre-fab homes that were energy efficient. Then I heard about green tea on a Saturday morning infommercial on the radio. That was late 90s. Now every aspect of life has a "green" solution.

Wake up everyone and see what the "green" really is, it is the "green" we've always been prodded to chase then spend.

[T. Hanson]

It is a good idea, but let me tell you what happens when you mandate a policy at a PRIVATE establishment.

This process adds time to the clearing of tables at your favorite establishment. This of course means a longer wait to get to your table. To make sure this does not affect customers the owner will hire another busboy (girl) which means either profit goes down, or food prices go up, or people won't get a raise.

Since attendance is now down in the establishment due to the smoking ban, or the economy he will have to increase the food prices because his employees will walk if they have take a pay cut or not get a raise. So thanks Mr. Maddox for another freaking mandate. I love eating a hamburger for $10.