US trails many countries in recycling; Kickstarter project seeks to help raise rate using Letterman set pieces

Despite the increase in recycling campaigns in recent years, U.S. residents and businesses still only recycle about 35 percent of their trash, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That is significantly below countries such as Austria [63%], Germany [62%], Belgium [58%], and Holland and Switzerland [51%], according to the European Environment Agency. The US is fairly close to the UK [39%] and tied with France.

To help increase that rate, Montgomery County journalist Kevin James Shay recently started a project on the Kickstarter crowdfunding site. He and his daughter, McKenna, a seventh grader at Baker Middle School in Damascus, Md., are creating artwork that use segments from a large railing piece they obtained outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City in May 2015.

After talk-show host David Letterman’s last show in May, CBS crew members trashed the large majority of items from the set. Railing pieces from bridges and bandstands, seat cushions, wooden platforms, and more were placed in large dumpsters, rather than with a museum or auction house, outside the Ed Sullivan Theater on West 53rd Street.

The Shays were in New York at that time attending a Broadway play when they observed the CBS workers placing items in dumpsters. He knew that there was a good chance those items would end up in landfills, as according to the environmental nonprofit GrowNYC, New Yorkers only recycle about 17% of their total waste. Much of New York City’s waste winds up in landfills in Pennsylvania and other states, or in a New Jersey incinerator.

So Shay sought to recycle or somehow use some of the Letterman set items, asking a crew member if he could take some. At first, the worker was reluctant, but he pointed to a specific six-foot long metal railing piece that was likely from the show’s bridge or bandstand. The worker handed him that, but that was the only piece he could obtain.

Shay did later receive a parking ticket and had his car towed for only the second time in his life. He detailed these experiences in an article for The Washington Post-affiliated Gazette that can be viewed at http://www.angelfire.com/biz/shaybiz/nytowing2015.pdf

He wasn’t sure what to do with this piece when he took it home to Maryland. It was too long to fit into his den, and part of it was broken so it wasn’t really suitable to be placed in a museum or anything like that. So he finally decided to cut it into smaller pieces and create conceptual art using a disposable society theme.

“I thought that recycling this material into a creative art project was the perfect vehicle to send a message and employ the piece appropriately, rather than having it rot away in a landfill and add to the planet’s growing trash and environmental problems,” said Shay, who has also written for The Dallas Morning News and authored several books.

With the sometimes help of his daughter, Shay is using parts of the railing to form the first letters of the words that start a message, such as “Eventually, your life’s work is trashed.” The “E” in that piece is about 6” high by 3” wide. The unframed, hand-painted artwork is on a 16” by 20” canvas.

They plan to create similar pieces showing nations’ recycling rates and perhaps quotes by Eldridge Cleaver and others about being part of the solution. They are contacting galleries, community centers, and similar venues in the Washington, D.C., and New York areas that may want to show this artwork. In addition, they are doing smaller pieces to give to some larger contributors and putting tiny pieces on small cards to give to all donors.

Letterman was the longest-running late-night host in TV history, lasting 33 years in hosting CBS’s “Late Show” and NBC’s “Late Night.” While a few pieces from his set were preserved by CBS, more of them deserved better than to be trashed in a dumpster, Shay said.

“This project can educate even veteran environmentalists like me,” he said. “I did not realize before I started researching how relatively little we are still recycling. We are doing better than 10 or 20 years ago, but we still have a long way to go to really solve this problem. And I see I can do more like finally setting up a composting system.”

Nationwide, more than 80 percent of the 250 million tons of waste we discard annually can be recycled or deposited at sites for proper disposal that keep it out of landfills. But Americans only recycle or compost about 35 percent of their trash, according to the EPA. Another 12 percent is burned, which causes air pollution and other problems, while more than 50 percent end up in landfills.

More information on the project is at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kevinjamesshay/lets-stop-trashing-the-world