America Recycles Day

America Recycles Day (ARD), is coming up soon! This November 15th, is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and to buy recycled products.

This will be the 12th year that millions of Americans have pledged to increase their recycling habits at home and work and to buy products made with recycled materials. The ARD supports local communities and raises awareness by educating citizens about the benefits of recycling. Volunteer America Recycles Day coordinators are positioned throughout the country and work to organize recycling awareness events in their schools and communities.


“The purpose of America Recycles Day is to continue to promote the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling and encourage more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment.”

By taking the pledge you promise to:

-Find out what materials you can and cannot recycle in your community.

-Lead by example in your neighborhood by recycling

-Email your elected officials to ask them to increase funding for your community’s recycling program

-Tell 5 friends that recycling is the easiest thing they can do to slow global warming.

Food: The New Frontier of Citywide Recycling

According to the US Department of Agriculture Americans throw away more than 25% of the food we prepare which amounts to 96 billion pounds of waste each year or 12% of the total waste generated by the country.

Composting is an extremely effective way to eliminate some of this addition to the waste stream. Compost, the rich, earthy result of nature’s own recycling process, transforms ordinary food scraps into a highly effective soil enricher, can prevent soil erosion and actually cleans pollutants from the earth.

Most cities currently have recycling programs to reduce the waste of plastics, glass and aluminum. Some cities are taking this a step further and are adding citywide composting to their recycling programs. San Francisco and Toronto were the first two North American cities to start large scale composting programs, but many cities like New York, Chicago, Ottawa, Denver and Minneapolis are currently working towards implementing similar programs.

The San Francisco program provides green bins for food waste to be placed in. The waste in these bins is collected (along with the garbage and recycling) and shipped to 3 local organic farms where the decaying process is sped up by oxygen and the resulting product is used as fertilizer. These organic farms then sell their products to locals in theory creating a closed loop system.

Could something like this work in Charleston???

The average South Carolinian generates 6.4 pounds of trash a day, which is 1.8 pounds more than the national average. The Charleston recycling program requires little or no effort (you don’t even have to sort your recyclables!), yet only about 30% of Charlestonians recycle. Also Charleston County does not accept many kinds of plastics. Laziness (both by citizens and the County) is the word that comes to mind when I think of recycling in Charleston. In my opinion it will take a long time and a big change of outlook for any kind of composting program to be established in Charleston, although it could make a big difference here with the large amount of waste we South Carolinians produce.

Recycling Polystyrene

With the holidays approaching, no doubt you're buying and receiving numerous products packaged in expanded polystyrene (EPS) - that solid white foam that protects fragile products and makes them so difficult to get out of the box. As you're looking for an alternative to tossing all that white foam into your trash can, take a visit to the Alliance of Foam Packaging for alternatives. Or if you have a huge box full of foam peanuts call the Peanut Hotline (800-828-2214) or check out www.loosefillpackaging.com. According to the website, the 5 Pak Mail locations around Charleston will take the peanuts as well as Postnet in Mt. Pleasant. Although only place in South Carolina that recycles EPS is Foam Fabricators, Inc. in Anderson, SC, they do suggest that you mail it to one of the regional recyclers, including the one in Anderson, rather than driving many miles and burning fuel.

Recycling Buildings

Two articles in today's Post and Courier - Recycled Structures and Deconstruction Saves Money, Helps at Landfill. The first article features The Sustainable Warehouse, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit.

Green Ideas from Norway

So we're back now from a conference in Stockholm and visiting family and touring in Norway. I have to say I was a bit surprised at the lack of ease of recycling in both countries. I expected to see recycling bins everywhere, but just like here, there were more trash than recycling bins. Of course there were for more recycling bins than you find on the streets here in Charleston (has anyone found a single one?) One thing that I did find pretty cool was parking spaces in Bergen (behind a public administration building) specifically for plug-in vehicles. Upon close inspection it appears that plugging in is also free. While this might be more likely to be done as a public service, I wouldn't hold out hope for that here. However, local businesses could probably set up something like this pretty easily. Particularly useful for shops with their own parking - it would encourage longer browsing (and thus hopefully more purchases). And it would be even more cool if that electricity came for the store's own renewable energy. On the other hand, if and when plug-ins come to Charleston it might be possible to make a business out of this if it were possible to lease a parking space or two.

Plastic Bottle Recycling

A student provided a link with information about plastic recycling today and I found it quite interesting so I thought I'd share. You can see plastic bottle recycling rates. Rates have been going down. However they're going down only in percent of sales. That is, the actual amount of plastic bottle recycling is going up, but the sales of plastic bottles is going up even faster, as this image shows. What I find surprising is that rates were at about 1/3 just a decade ago (but are now down below 1/4). A comparison with Sweden's rates is also interesting. Clearly something happened in Sweden in 1995. Something happened here too. Per capita waste started shooting up in 1995 - about the time bottled water started catching on. There is plenty more information about other container recycling, have fun with it.