Cast a vote - more than once a year - Editor's Focus - Brief Article

Recycling Today, May, 2002 by Brian Taylor

They are non-binding elections, but visitors to the Recycling Today Web site [www.RecyclingToday.com] always have a chance to cast their votes. For the past several months, the Web site has included an online poll asking readers for their opinions or predictions on a recycling issue.

The topics of poll questions chosen by Recycling Today editors cover a range of issues, with an attempt to make sure there are questions of interest on a regular basis for Web site visitors whether they are in the metals, paper, municipal or another recycling industry segment.

Researchers would certainly categorize the poll results as unscientific, as there is no attempt made to reach a statistically significant cross-section of the recycling industry. But even without the "Good Researching seal of approval," a look at poll results shows some interesting opinions being expressed by Recycling Today readers and Web site visitors.

* Brokers of scrap materials may be dismayed to note that nearly half of the respondents to a November 2001 poll question (48 percent) believe brokers will "play less of a role in the recycling industry" in the next three years. The other 52 percent of respondents pegged the role of brokers in the next three years as ranging anywhere from remaining unchanged (13 percent) to being even more essential in connecting parties (14 percent).

* With regard to which recyclable material readers and Web visitors are most interested in, paper was king in a December 2001 poll with a 28 percent showing. Metals were next, with 25 percent of respondents selecting either ferrous or nonferrous metal as the recyclable they tracked most closely. Plastics captured the bronze medal with a 14 percent showing, followed closely by rubber/tires.

* Hopefully, the largest single category of poll respondents were wrong with their assessment of recycling markets taken during a September 2001 poll. At that time, 46 percent of voters (by far the leading answer) predicted that it would be "longer than one year" before markets for recyclables would show a significant turnaround. With prices starting to edge back up in late spring, the 11 percent of respondents who selected "between six to nine months" may have chosen correctly.

* More recently, in a question posed in early April, 40 percent of respondents reported an increase in the generation of recyclable material that they could collect. That compares with only 15 percent who believed they were still seeing a decline, while the remainder saw no change or were unsure.

The recycling community is a wide one, with segments of it touching the metals, paper, solid waste and any number of other manufacturing and service industries.

It can be tough to determine where recyclers in all these different segments see their industry heading, but with the help of readers and Web visitors who participate in RecyclingToday.com's online polls, the input of several hundred people can at least begin to provide some clues.