on the cover / By Ryan Burns

Redemption Value

Recycling has changed in profound, fundamental ways in the 40 years of ACRC’s operations. While it has become an activity shared by nearly everyone — from citizens dutifully tossing containers into their 96-gallon bins to city and county governments finding ways to divert half their waste to recycling — that doesn’t necessarily mean we as a society deserve a pat on the back. If anything, recycling has simply enabled Americans to continue our wasteful ways without feeling quite as bad about it.

“Recycling is almost like a palliative: ‘Oh, I can buy this junk because I can recycle it and it will make me feel better,’” Test said. “Well, it’s just junk. Garbage. … Some of it you can recycle, and that’s really nice. But it’s not the fuzzy, warm thing that we hippies used to do back before it was mainstream … . It’s a commodity business now. And we should be thinking about ways of reducing, not recycling.”

This transformation into a commodity business goes a long way toward explaining why nonprofits have been systematically squeezed out, which isn’t necessarily a tragedy, according to Arcata Councilmember/HWMA board member Shane Brinton. He said that while he sincerely hopes ACRC can emerge from this situation intact, the era of relying on nonprofits for recycling may have passed. “When organizations like ACRC started up, they were on the front lines, and they were extremely necessary because government wasn’t doing what it needed to do,” he said. “I’m grateful to ACRC for getting it going and making it happen. But I think now we may be enlightened enough in the public sector to take on the responsibilities that should have been ours all along.”

Even Loughmiller admitted that, from a certain perspective, it makes sense for HWMA to take ownership of the Samoa plant. “I will never say that that’s necessarily an inappropriate conclusion,” he allowed. “It’s one of many appropriate conclusions.” This observation, and the tone in which it was delivered, betrayed a sadness and resignation that goes beyond cold realities like the potential loss of his livelihood and that of his 35 employees. For all the arguments Loughmiller presented for preserving ACRC, the central one seemed to go unspoken. There’s a palpable nostalgia in Loughmiller and others for the romanticism of recycling as a mission, for the almost church-like community created by standing elbow to elbow with someone at a sorting table. To the people who love ACRC, it represents far more than just recycling, and its demise would be an irretrievable loss. “The reality is, to make an omelet you need to break a lot of eggs,” Loughmiller said wistfully. “And we’re just one of those eggs getting broken.”

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