Garbage in, golf course out

Common Cause Magazine, Summer, 1994 by Elliott Zaret

There are incentives, and then there are ... incentives. Take recycling, for example, which suddenly began to look attractive when Uncle Sam offered men and women in uniform rewards for recycling such as new golf courses, shooting ranges and fitness centers at their military bases.

The good news is, more garbage than ever is being turned in at military recycling depots. The bad news is, some pretty valuable hardware has suddenly acquired the status of garbage.

A recent investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) found that a 1982 federal law enacted to encourage aggressive recycling at the nation's military facilities has achieved at least one intended goal: The sale of recyclables at bases yielded about $37 million in 1992. But only 10 percent of the recycled materials were reusable or headed for landfills, the GAO discovered.

In fact, many bases were not recycling plastic or aluminum cans at all -- because officials realized "the program could make more money concentrating on other items." This despite a 1983 Defense Department memo that specifically excluded from its list of recyclables vehicles and vehicle parts, ships, planes, weapons and any material that needs to be "demilitarized," taken apart or destroyed for security reasons.

Military bases have become zealous "recyclers" of crashed aircraft, jet engines, aircraft and ship parts, bridges, ammunition shells and bomb casings, according to the GAO. The bases didn't so much "recycle" these big-ticket items as sell them to private scavengers for cold hard cash.

At the Tooele Army Depot in Utah, the GAO found recycling personnel loading bomb containers onto a buyer's trucks. Because this sale fell outside the definition of "recycling," the $48,300 the base received should have gone to the Pentagon or the U.S. Treasury. Instead it went toward a lavish recreation program. And Kelly Air Force Base in Texas was pocketing about $1 million a year in recycling proceeds that should have gone to federal accounts, the GAO says.

The law says recycling proceeds should first pay for the program itself, then finance morale, welfare and recreation activities, as well as pollution control, energy conservation and safety activities. But the GAO found that the bases spent almost no money on environmental projects. This could have had something to do with a 1988 memo from the Air Force Logistics Command stating that bases "were not expected to accomplish any safety or environmental projects with recycling program funds."

Instead, the bases built golf courses, recreational facilities and fitness centers and bought recreational vehicles and ski equipment. Tooele Army Depot, for example, used its proceeds to build a fishing pond and a $250,000 shooting range. Tooele officials defended the expenditures, noting that "fishing programs are not only designed for recreation, but for wildlife and land management as well. Firing ranges not only provide recreation, but play an integral part in the promotion of firearms safety."

Although Defense Department officials concurred with GAO recommendations of tighter internal controls and audits of the military recycling program, military bases surveyed by Common Cause Magazine said their recycling programs would not change until so ordered by the Pentagon. Officials at Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, which sold demilitarized F-14 aircraft brakes, see no reason to change the program.

"It has been and continues to be dedicated to finding new and innovative methods to reduce solid waste through sound business practices," a spokesperson said in written response.

The Defense Department insists it will implement the GAO's recommendations -- sometime. "If it says we'll follow up on it," says a spokesperson, "you'll have to take our word on that."