Manufacturers have a responsibility to ensure proper disposal of their products (GreenTech, by Associate Editor Denise DiRamio, June issue)? The phrase is probably written by your headline writer, but it is clearly an editorial opinion, not a statement of fact. In fact, the entire article is full of slanted or misleading statements. All the named sources are environmental activist organizations with a strong agenda, and all the suggestions push responsibility away from the individual or company who purchases and uses the equipment and toward some amorphous corporate entity who not only made the things we wanted to buy but were evil enough to innovate and make something better than we had before, tempting us to sin further against Mother Gaia.

Not recycling an aluminum can wastes more energy than filling it with gasoline and setting it on fire! Is Alcoa responsible for making you recycle that soda can, or is Coca-Cola? Of course not! You are responsible for doing the right thing with your Coke can, and you are responsible for doing the right thing with your old iPod or PC.

- Karl Compton
CTO, Cierra Business Solutions

From the editor: As seen on Alcoa's Web site. "For as long as we've been making aluminum, we've been recycling aluminum. That's because aluminum is so valuable and so easy to recycle. Alcoa recycles approximately 14 billion - that's billion, with a "B" - aluminum cans each year and would like to recycle more. Why is this so important? Because it takes 95 percent less energy to make a can out of recycled aluminum, and produces 95 percent less greenhouse gas. Making aluminum from aluminum has a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of making aluminum from ore. And the benefits are so great that it's important to recycle every single scrap."

As seen on Coca-Cola's Web site. "The Coca-Cola Company and United Resource Recovery Corporation will build the world's largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C. The plant will produce approximately 100 million pounds of food-grade recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic for reuse each year - the equivalent of producing nearly two billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles. The long-term sustainability of our business depends on our ability to ensure the sustainability of our packaging. This new recycling facility represents a significant milestone as we work to advance recycling in the U.S. and ensure a strong end-market for our PET packaging.

"The new 30-acre Spartanburg plant will be fully operational in 2009. It is part of a continuing effort by Coca-Cola to support recycling in key markets. Coca-Cola also has invested in recycling facilities in Switzerland, Mexico, Austria and the Philippines. Recycling plastic for reuse yields financial benefits, requires less energy than producing bottles with virgin materials, and reduces waste and greenhouse gases. Over the next 10 years, the Spartanburg recycling plant is expected to eliminate the production of one million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions - the equivalent of removing 215,000 cars from the road."

Communications News welcomes your comments. Please send feedback to Editor Ken Anderberg at kanderberg@comnews.com.