Document aJejyqRL1bQrQp7m6JNm6kN7B

THE SOCIETY OF THE PLASTICS INDUSTRY. INC. 250 PARK AVENUE NEW YORK. NEW YORK 10017 212 637 2675 January 10, 1973 Mr. David Ross Stevens Staff Writer, Editorial Dept. The Courier-Journal & Times Louisville, Ky. 1-0201 Dear Mr. Stevens: Mr. Ralph Harding and I appreciated the opportunity to visit with you and the other members of the editorial staff during our visit to Louisville in December. We were pleased to see the results of our visit expressed in your editorial writing appearing later in December. It appears that your previous background and the particular material we discussed during the visit has given you a pretty good understanding of our feeling about the role of plastics in solid waste. There is much work to be done by many individuals and the plastics industry is anxious to be involved in the total solution even though we are re sponsible for a relatively small component of the entire problem. In reviewing your article you had indicated that there had been only one case of recycled plastic consumer goods re ported. Although this may have been the only one we mentioned during our visit, there have been many activities related to the recycling of plastics from post consumer use. X am enclosing a copy of a paper I gave at a recent meeting at ASTM that mentions several additional recycling activities asrwell as outlining our general strategy on the reclaiming of plastic materials from the solid waste stream. In addition to those several recycling activities mentioned in my paper we have documented 20 to 25 additional case histories on recycling of plastics from post consumer waste.. The recycling of plastics from this source poses the greatest challenge for three reasons: 1) there are no established procedures for separating the plastics from other waste; 2) there are no established markets for contaminated, mixed plastics; and 3) the techni<jues of cleaning and separating the mixed plastics in major kinds of resins has not been developed far large scale economic application. SPI-23515 L.'avid ?oss S; tevens page 2 There is one other point in your article that might prove to be the basis for further writing. You mention some of the pollution problems in the Ruhbertown area of Louisville. Because some of the members of SPI do*have other chemical processing activities in the Ruhbertown area, we are familiar with the fact that many millions of dollars have been spent by the companies in the Rubbertovn area to correct the problems that existed there. It is my under standing that today there is a substantial difference in the pollution of the Chio Riv^r that might be connected with the plants located in the Rubbertovn area. I have been advised that the corrective installations made by the companies involved have been or will be donated to the City of Louisville. The supposition is that these facilities will not only handle the problems of the particular area that may be used by the city to handle waste materials from other locations. I have been advised that there should be members of the Courier-Journal & Times staff who are familiar with these kinds of activities in the Rubbertovn area. Perhaps it would be worthwhile looking into what is being done and consider the possibility of a report on the situation for your environmental column. In the future, if you have any particular questions re lating to plastics generally, or the location of in dividuals who may be able to answer specific questions, please feel free to contact me or Mr. Harding directly at SPI. Again, it was a pleasure to visit with you. Very truly yours. John R. Lawrence Director, Technical Liaison JRL/mjh enc. bcc: R. Harding, Jr. S. Nuspliger J. Moore, H.& K. D. Louis, H.& K. Louisville SPI-23516