Dear Editor:

I am dismayed by the new recycling rules at the Regional Disposal Station. I arrived with a variety of plastic items to recycle but was told, "We now only accept #2 plastic items because we can't make money on #1 and other grades. We have to pay to get rid of them." Thus, other than a Centrum bottle, the rest of my wastebasket container of clear plastic bottles (each with a 'Please Recycle' request on their label), plant container, and other plastics headed off to the landfill to be there for many future generations when they could have been reused, albeit at a cost to BRRDD.

Our towns each contribute to the BRRDD (Southport's $167,050 share ranks among the town's top three expenditures behind schools and public works). We see recycling as a public service rather than having BRRDD's primary goal to be a moneymaking enterprise. In Florida we have an array of items eligible for recycling and that list is expanding, not contracting. Who is looking over the shoulder of the BRRDD trustees to see that they are not only performing their role efficiently (which seems to be the case) but truly serving the communities that support them? I thought we were an award-winning refuse district that has protecting the environment as part of its mission. What happened?

Joan Hurd

Southport