2006
Martin Melaver, CEO

A number of us recently met with City officials to discuss implementing a recycling program.  Us:  a lawyer, a few business people, an engineer, the local head of an environmental advocacy group, an economic development expert.  We were part of a much larger group that had been meeting for the past 14 months or so to develop a cogent business plan for recycling.

The City also had a number of representatives at this meeting, but for our purposes here, the only one that mattered was the chief finance officer.  He was in the manner of most men, only more so:  Unemotionally analytical, referring to the 8,000 plus municipalities around the US that recycle as doing so only for “feel good reasons;” A man of sound science, pointing out that recycling kept only a miniscule portion of waste out of the landfill, hardly worth the energy and financial investment; Pragmatic, rejecting our committee’s projections regarding the number of households that would participate in recycling, casting doubt on our 6-year trend line regarding the market prices recycled goods would likely fetch; Supremely confident and All-knowing, aware that no matter what arguments were put before him, the spreadsheet he had devised was the truth and that truth would set us free; Unmovable and Omnipotent, knowing that lectures about “democratic process” and “the voice of the people” were for naïve school kids and had nothing to do with how policy was actually made, from clay in his hands.
 
The meeting gave me pause. 
We came out of the meeting, venting.