Trash plan puts big focus on recycling:

Wow! Each Lake County resident produces 9.6 pounds of trash per day. That is a crazy number. I am glad a new plan wants to increase composting and recycling. But I think we can do so much better in Lake County.

Why doesn't the advisory group, the Lake County Board and SWALCO look into teaching people and businesses to reduce our daily garbage in general? I was taught in school the three R's and that was to Reduce first, Reuse and Recycle last.

We need to teach people that just because something can be recycled, like a plastic water bottle, it doesn't mean that it's ok to buy and use it. Even if items are composted and recycled, we are still producing garbage that we need to do something with.

If we are going to make recycling the cure, we need to get people to use and businesses to give customers items made from 100 percent recycled content.

Fast-food places that give out plastic cups should be required to use 100 percent recycled plastic. This way we are then working toward a closed loop system.

We need to get Starbucks to encourage customers to use reusable travel mugs.

Also, why don't we demand that our businesses not use Styrofoam and plastic bags too? Have you seen the landfill on a windy day?

Abby Goldberg

Grayslake