America Recycles Day: A Look at Single-Stream Recycling
Posted by Wes Muir November 15th, 2009 
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By Wes Muir, Director of Communications, Waste Management
Since November 15 is America Recycles Day, this is an appropriate time to take a step back and consider what we can be doing better for the planet. From a resource management perspective, the four Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover – have long guided solutions for dealing with the abundance of waste produced on a daily basis.
Building on this principle, communities and neighborhoods around the U.S. have joined to support waste reduction by participating in curbside recycling programs that enable every person to have a positive impact on the environment. In turn, roughly 33 percent of paper and cardboard waste is recovered and processed in the United States, according to a 2007 report from the EPA.
You may be thinking, “Only 33 percent? Shouldn’t this rate be higher?” It should, and it can be.
Let’s Talk Trash: Knowaste Turns Dirty Diapers into Green ($)
Posted by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway November 9th, 2009 0 Comments
Did you know the average baby goes through 5,000 to 6,000 dirty diapers by the time he or she is potty trained? That accounts for nearly one ton of waste per child. Although disposable diapers are convenient, they also create a burden on our landfills. Disposable diapers can take up to 500 years to decompose. And untreated human waste poses another environmental concern – the potential to contaminate groundwater resources.
So imagine being able to divert thousands of tons of dirty diapers from landfills on an annual basis. That is exactly what Knowaste will soon be doing. Beginning in May 2010, Knowaste Ltd., will open a new recycling facility in the United Kingdom.
It is estimated about 8 million disposable diapers are used on a daily basis in the United Kingdom. Now that’s a lot of dirty diapers! Disposable diapers consist of three parts: wood pulp, gel polymers and mixed plastic. According to the company website, 98 percent of the disposable diaper or incontinence pad can be removed from the waste stream using their patented technology.
Help TerraCycle Find New Life for Old Toothbrushes
Posted by Tom Szaky November 2nd, 2009 8 Comments
Toothbrush Terrain. Image credit: krossbow on Flickr.
Look at your toothbrush. It’s likely made of some form of plastic, rubber, and inventive design engineering, packed into a small space. After your initial decision process, where color, teeth cleaning wizardry, and perhaps recycled content and recyclability came into play, you don’t really notice it that much anymore. It’s become part of the background.
Until now.
Now being the start of another round of winter colds, one of the preventative practices being to throw away your toothbrush and get a new one. Hang on, you know I can’t let that be how it goes!
Levi Strauss Partners with Goodwill; Knows How to Pick a Good Restaurant
Posted by Jen Boynton October 22nd, 2009 0 Comments
Ok, ok, I admit it. I’m a cheap date. Levi Strauss invited me and some other writers to an intimate dinner at Fish and Farm last night to talk about their new partnership with Goodwill. We had a wonderful and real conversation about the lifecycle of a pair of jeans and now I love Levi Strauss. It doesn’t take much to please me. PR people, please note: If you ply me with sustainable meat and biodynamic wine, I will probably say nice things about you!
All joking aside, the event was an opportunity to talk candidly about the challenges of greening a carbon intensive industry like clothing manufacture. The people at Levi Strauss were pretty upfront about what they were doing well and what they want to do better and that in itself is commendable. It is rare that a company will let you behind the reception desk to see the execs in action- trying to make the best decisions for the company that they can, wrangling with difficult trade-offs in cost, meeting consumer demand, and limitations in a global supply chain. We got to see a little bit of that last night.
Turning Waste into Renewable Energy Treasure
Posted by Wes Muir October 19th, 2009 2 Comments
By Wes Muir, director of communications, Waste Management
With Energy Awareness Month in full swing, it’s important to recognize all the ingredients of America’s renewable energy recipe. The potential for securing a more sustainable energy future in this country is boundless, and includes many moving pieces. This puzzle is heavily dependent on the available and developing energy technologies, such as wind and solar power that have dominated recent discussions about renewables. But one resource that is markedly missing from these conversations can be found right in your home – your trash.
Trash is an ever-present source, especially in the U.S. On average, Americans throw away 4.7 pounds of garbage each day – which equates to about 254 million tons of waste each year. While recycling and composting have proven to divert some of this waste, landfills and waste to energy remain necessary for housing the remaining waste that can’t be recycled – and using it to produce energy.
Policy Solutions for Managing E-Waste
Posted by Wes Muir September 25th, 2009 0 Comments
As electronic devices like cell phones, computer monitors and television sets become increasingly available – thus becoming one of the fastest growing components of the global waste stream – government and business leaders must find solutions for best managing these e-waste materials. This week, leading experts in the fields of electronics manufacturing, recycling and waste management from across the country met in Orlando, Florida for the annual E-Scrap Conference to discuss the major legislative and policy issues surrounding e-waste.
Most electronic items contain substances that are necessary for their proper operation, including lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame-retardants. As a result, disposal of such electronics must be carefully managed. Some manufacturers are already taking responsibility for the end-of-life maintenance of their products, and have developed e-waste recycling programs for businesses and consumers to safely manage and dispose of their electronic waste right here in the U.S. While the support of manufacturers certainly helps drive proper e-waste disposal, leading recyclers who handle this waste on a daily basis, and have a responsibility to maintain environmental standards, also have a large influence on policies surrounding this issue. Unfortunately, according to Government Accountability Office (GAO) some recyclers aren’t playing by the rules.
How to Turn a Mountain Dew into a Graduation Robe
Posted by Paul S September 18th, 2009 4 Comments
This is a story about a 120 year old start up. Or re-start up, as it were. Oak Hall Cap & Gown is a US based company doing what, for the most part, has been moved overseas: Making what we use in our graduations. Often by hand.
They’re one of those rare companies that eschews laying off people in seasonal lulls, treats people as family, and has a dedicated workforce as a result. They’ve made many of the gowns for honorary degree ceremonies, and were infamously seen twice in the swearing in of Barack Obama.
They were in search of a way to make their product more current, and apparently on a visit to one of the 1,600 colleges and universities they serve, EVP Joseph D’Angelo was looking at a biodegradable spork while at lunch, and thought, “If a spork can be environmentally friendly, why not a graduation gown?”
After getting “terrible” results trying bamboo, they went with recycled PET (plastic bottle) based fabric that mimics polyester cloth. After thoroughly testing it, Greenweaver robes were created, and will be ready for the December 2009 graduation season. Graduations can be a source of a tremendous amount of waste, but here are some greener graduation suggestions we shared earlier. With GreenWeaver, each uses the equivalent of 23 bottles.
While only one part of graduation, these robes could serve a larger purpose then just their one time use there:
Two Ways to Go Beyond Ecycling
Posted by Paul S September 11th, 2009 3 Comments
What do you do with your old electronics when you’re done? For most, they get stored in some back corner of your house, doing a great job gathering dust. Ecycling is a step beyond that, and has become part of the broader consciousness, with major office supply stores now collecting devices.
But ecycling comes with a big package of issues: Where does it get shipped to to have it done? Who does it? What conditions are the workplace where it’s done? Are workers getting poisoned as they do this work?
Despite assurances, in many cases what’s being promised is not what’s delivered when you do you think you’re doing your part in seeing that your old electronics get reused rather then disposed of.
How would you like to know for sure that your electronics are either benefiting those in need or benefiting your pocketbook by getting paid or reducing your costs? And we’re not talking only recent vintage, in demand gear either.
Fall’s New Fashion Trend: Plastic Bottles
Posted by Ashwin Seshagiri September 1st, 2009 0 Comments
Anvil Knitwear Launches New T-Shirt Made From Recycled PET Bottles
Yesterday, Anvil Knitwear announced the launch of its newest line of eco-friendly apparel: A t-shirt made from plastic bottles. No, this is not some misguided homage to Zoolander’s Dereliqute campaign, but rather an interesting attempt to promote plastic recycling and the conversion to industrial organic cotton farming.
Called the AnvilSustainable, each tee uses approximately three 20-ounce recycled plastic bottles, and the cotton utlized comes from farms that are in the three-year process of transitioning to organic. According to the company, using recycled plastic is also cheaper than using new polyester, so Anvil can pass the savings onto consumers.
“Buying a shirt made with cotton in conversion is a great way to support farmers making the switch, and encourage more to do the same,” said Anthony Corsano, Anvil’s CEO.
Squeezing New Life from Beverage Cartons
Posted by Wes Muir July 14th, 2009 0 Comments
Image Credit
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
Chew on this: nearly every breakfast table in the country holds a carton of orange juice or milk each morning. While we’re well aware that these beverages help us maintain a healthy and balanced diet, it’s easily overlooked that the milk and juice cartons we use can also help maintain a healthy and balanced environment. These cartons are largely made of paper that consumers can recycle, and giving these products a second life reduces the strain they put on the environment if they are merely put to waste.
Until very recently, milk and juice carton recycling received little attention, with only certain municipalities offering carton recycling services. Even information about recycling the more than 510,000,000 milk cartons used in the U.S. (a 2006 statistic from the National Recycling Coalition) was fairly unavailable. The EPA has general statistics about paper recycling, including the paperboard that makes up typical cartons. However, as one eco-conscious blogger noted in June 2008:
That got me thinking. How many milk cartons does my household go through over a short period of time, say a week? More importantly, why are milk cartons not recycled? They are made of paper aren’t they? Even more puzzling is the fact that on the side of some of the cartons I buy, it says “please recycle”. I want to, but my town will not take them. So I decided to do some research on how to recycle a milk carton, and why my town won’t do it. I thought the information would be readily available. I was wrong.
Singtex Produces Fabric from Waste Coffee Grounds
Posted by Ariel Schwartz July 14th, 2009 0 Comments
Singtex Industrial Co., a Taiwanese fabric producer, has embraced the sustainable fabric craze, but with a caffeinated twist: recycled coffee grounds. The company’s S. Cafe material uses fibers from grounds to purportedly produce a fabric that is quick-drying, controls odors, and protects wearers from harmful UV rays.
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