Environment: Gold in Garbage

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Returnable Cars. At least 100 municipalities, universities and industries are working on the solid-waste problem. Max Spendlove, research director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines' Metallurgy Research Center at College Park, Md., is reclaiming glass and metals from res- idue scooped from incinerators. At a cost of $3.52 a ton, he says, his methods yield materials with a potential market value of $12 a ton. Last week New York City's environmental protection administrator. Je- rome Kretchmer. suggested a way to recycle the 73,000 cars that New Yorkers abandon on the streets each year. He urged the state to enact a law making auto buyers give the state a $ 100 deposit for new cars, auto owners $50 for their present car. Once the cars were junked "in an environmentally acceptable manner," the money would be refunded—the old returnable-bottle scheme, but this time with a deposit worth collecting.