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In the U.S., four out of five grocery bags are plastic, with the average American family accumulating nearly 60 plastic bags for every four trips to the grocery store.  But is this by choice?  If Americans knew how damaging those plastic bags are to the environment, would they choose them?  Consider this (http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/top-facts/plastic-bag-facts):

• 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year, worldwide.   

• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute.

• A single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade

• The U.S. alone goes through 100 billion single-use plastic bags. This costs retailers about $4 billion a year

• Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts, with every single square mile of ocean having about 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it.  70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never degrade

• Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down.

• Only between .5% to 3% of all bags winds up recycled

So Choose Paper, Right?

Not so fast, pardner!  There is evidence that the ready alternative, paper bags, are also very damaging to the environment:

• Paper bag production produces 70% more air pollution and 50 times more water pollution than plastic bag production

• Waste by weight of paper bags is 400% higher than plastic and the amount of waste by volume is higher by more than 250%. With landfills running low on space, plastic is obviously preferable to plastic

• Cutting down forests to make paper bags is environmentally costly, as is transporting the bags to their ultimate destinations. Plastic bags are much thinner and lighter than paper bags, and take about 1/45 the truck space that paper bags take.   That means transporting paper bags consumes 45 times more fuel, and produces 45 times the congestion and smog of plastic bags.  (http://www.plasticbageconomics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=45)

What’s the Answer: Think Outside the Bag

The first plastic sandwich bag came on the market in 1957.  It took 20 more years before grocers began asking, “Paper or Plastic?”  In its relatively brief lifespan, plastic has made a widespread, indelible impact on the planet.

Because they are such an environmental problem and eyesore, countries such as Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia and Bangladesh have taxed the bags heavily, or outright banned them.  Several cities in the U.S. and the U.K. are doing the same.

Instead of paper or plastic, many people are now using reusable bags made from string, recycled plastic, baskets and boxes.

If you do choose plastic, please recycle them.  Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have recycling centers at many of their stores where you can drop off your used plastic bags.  Between April and December, 2010, Target collected more than 170 million shopping bags (equal to more than 1800 tons). Laid end-to-end, they would stretch from L.A. to NYC more than 17 times.

So, the next time you are asked, “Paper or Plastic?” will you be able to say “Neither, I brought my own”?

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“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” — Kenneth Boulding (Economist)

With world population projected to reach 9.2 billion by the year 2050, the challenge of managing the earth’s resources more efficiently becomes ever more critical every day.

Companies and organizations everywhere are rising to the challenge.  Pepsi just announced it has created a “plastic” bottle that looks identical to its current petroleum based plastic bottles.  The new bottles, however, are made entirely from plant based materials.

Pepsi plans to use leftovers from its food business, such as orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers as resources for manufacturing the bottles, thus helping Pepsi reduce its carbon footprint.  Pepsi will be testing the bottles in 2012 (see full article at http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LVJI5G0.htm).

What can your business innovate to help create a more sustainable future?

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This is part three of a three-part series on Transforming Your Waste Stream into a Recycling Stream.

America Recycles Day is today! The perfect day for your company to pledge to start or enhance a business recycling program.

Getting Started
Oftentimes, just knowing where to start with an office-recycling program is the biggest barrier; however, it is also the greatest opportunity. There are many ways to begin big five recycling efforts. Here is one simple sample plan:

1. Identify what materials are generated in sufficient quantities within your business to merit recycling with a waste assessment. This can be conducted in-house.

“A simple review of what kind of waste is being generated – a “waste assessment” – will help businesses identify the most prevalent discarded materials that would make the most sense to target in a recycling program,” Scott Mouw, Environmental Supervisor for the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance, suggests. “But even if they are only a small part of the waste stream, materials like aluminum, plastic, glass and steel are easy to capture and find outlets for.”

As Mouw suggests, if your company is small, you may decide to focus on paper recycling collection with a service provider and collect and recycle other materials (e.g., aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles) through individual efforts such as employees taking turns bringing these smaller quantities of materials home and adding them to their residential recycling bins.

2. Set priorities and goals for a big five program.

3. Educate the office about recycling initiative. Explain expectations and responsibilities of the employees.

4. Evaluate progress and adjust the program to maintain successful results over time.

Since paper represents the largest slice of the municipal solid waste pie—especially at work—paper and cardboard are generally the best materials with which to begin recycling efforts. For the commercial sector, paper and aluminum recycling rates seem to support the relative ease of recycling these components of the big five.

According to the Paper Industry Association Council, “A record-high 63.4 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling in 2009.” The Aluminum Association reported 54.2 percent of used aluminum beverage cans were recycled. 2008 EPA Recycling Facts and Figures report recycling rates for HDPE (#2) plastics at 29.3 percent, glass containers at 28.0 percent and PET (#1) bottles and jars recovered for recycling at 27.2 percent.

According to Mouw, “Often the weight and volume of paper offers the best opportunity for substantial waste reduction and cost avoidance.” He adds, “Still, recycling markets and the environmental benefits of diverting the other [big five] materials are also substantial in their own right and should not be overlooked, especially if there is an ability to operate a very simple commingled recycling program where paper and the other materials can be combined in collection.”

The overall goal with starting or enhancing a big five recycling program should be to work toward reducing your waste stream and replacing it with a recycling stream.  To this end, you not only improve your triple bottom line accounting, but also the environment – efforts well worth the investment on the road to zero waste and sustainability.

Start the conversation…^™
Since 1960, EPA data has shown steady increases in recycling; however, overall recycling rates seemed to have leveled out just over the 30% mark in the past few years. What actions can your company use to start or improve recycling of the big five in your office and help increase national recycling rates?

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This is part two of a three-part series on Transforming Your Waste Stream into a Recycling Stream.

America Recycles Day is November 15^th — the perfect day for your company to pledge to start or enhance a business recycling program.

Implementing a plan for recycling the big five at work can be challenging. Four common barriers include:

Availability
While most communities with residential curbside recycling programs also offer commercial recycling programs, communities in more rural areas may only have access to drop-off programs where users must bring their materials to a facility for recycling.

However, when it comes to paper recycling, which is often the largest component of the waste stream in the workplace, the outlook is promising.  According to a 2007 American Forest and Paper Association Community Survey, there has been marked growth in curbside recycling for paper in both small and large communities since 2005. Access to curbside recycling certainly makes it easier to recycle materials from work; however, drop-off recycling programs can still be feasible if you are located in a small community or remote location with no recycling service providers available to pick up materials.

Collection
Finding space for not only interior and exterior collection bins, but also for such equipment as a baler to compact cardboard or cans, can be a challenge to some businesses. Further, initial investments for equipment may be required if not supported or supplied from community recycling programs and recycling vendors. For example, you may find that you generate enough cardboard and/or aluminum cans to warrant the investments into special interior collection bins and/or a compacting baler.

One solution to consider if you are tight for space or funding is to work with other businesses in your area.  For instance, if your business is a part of a strip mall or office complex, devising a cooperative plan may save not only on equipment space and investment costs, but also on waste removal and recycling costs as well. If large quantities of recyclables are generated by collective efforts, you may even increase your market share of profits.

Negotiations
When negotiating for waste and recycling services, be sure that you are not paying for waste hauling services and then tacking recycling services on to that cost. When you begin or enhance a recycling program, your waste generation should go down and in turn your waste hauling charges as well.  Scott Mouw, Environmental Supervisor for the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance, explains, “depending on an individual business’s situation, there could be a marginal cost of recycling if the service provider needs to charge for collection (which is often the case).”

Mouw goes on, “Businesses must sharpen their pencil on the waste side to make sure they take advantage of waste service cost savings when they implement recycling. In general, finding a service provider is a big step in the process but businesses can often get help from local and state government recycling programs in helping find recycling service companies.”

Most communities have local- or state-government recycling coordinators (check the listings in the government pages of your phonebook under Recycling, Public Works, Environmental Protection or Solid Waste Management) who can assist with information about equipment and markets and information about community recycling service providers. If you do not have a recycling coordinator to help you, check with your current trash hauler to see if they offer recycling pickup. This may be the most economical option when you are already an established customer with them, but not always.  The question you want to ask is, ‘What type of package deal can I get to reduce waste hauling charges and include recycling pickup?’ Ideally, you want to keep your costs the same or reduce them by adding on recycling services.

Engaging Employees
When starting or improving a recycling program, involvement and education of all employees is key.

“It is important to involve all parties in the company that take part in the generation and management of waste – production workers, the business office, shipping/receiving staff, etc,” says Mouw, who works to expand recycling markets in North Carolina as well as the southeast.

“Time and time again, the most successful waste-reducing businesses are those who take a team approach to the problem and get ideas from everyone involved.”

Recyclers will be interested in quality and quantity of your materials. Keep them clean and free of contamination to receive the best share of market revenues if available to you and to avoid your recycling efforts ending up in your dumpster where they will waste resources and increase waste hauling charges.

Involvement of all employees from the start, and initial training and signage reminding everyone of your policies and procedures will go a long way in making your big five recycling programs successful. Use signs to clearly indicate recycling bin locations and instructions about what, where, how and why they should recycle. Consider mass e-mails to keep employees abreast of recycling goals met or ones the company is striving to achieve.

An online guide from The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University says, “Giving people an immediate incentive, if possible, also makes behavior change easier.”  Posting the department with the highest recycling rate each month can help foster team spirit, motivate friendly competition and increase recycling rates within your organization.

Monday in Part 3, starting a business recycling program.

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This is part one of a three-part series on Transforming Your Waste Stream into a Recycling Stream.

America Recycles Day is November 15^th — the perfect day for your company to pledge to start or enhance a business recycling program.

In today’s green economy the goal for the business waste stream should be zero waste. To get there, businesses are increasingly diving into their waste stream to really understand what it is comprised of and how they can properly, and successfully, reduce, reuse and recycle it.

“In 2008, Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash,“ according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Waste from commercial and institutional locations, such as schools, hospitals, and businesses, amounted to 35 to 45 percent of total waste generation.” On the path toward zero waste, recycling still plays an important part of the “three R’s” equation.

For years recycling programs have focused on reducing residential waste. Now it is time for businesses to focus on their recycling efforts as well. If your business does not have a recycling program, it is time to start. If you have one, it is time to re-evaluate and enhance it. In either case, begin with the basic building-block materials of recycling…

Aluminum, glass, paper, plastic and steel are the crux of most recycling programs. Collectively, these materials are known as the “big five” in the recycling industry as they comprise more than half of the municipal (combined residential and commercial) solid waste stream. They also are easily collected and recycled through most established recycling programs in the United States.

Recycling saves energy, resources and landfill space as well as reduces the environmental impacts caused when creating new material from virgin resources. The big five commodities are prime candidates for helping businesses reduce waste and improve sustainability because aluminum, steel and glass can be recycled infinitely; paper, which is so prevalent in the workplace, can be recycled from its highest-quality form seven times before fibers are too short to recycle further; and virgin plastic is made from non-renewable petroleum resources.

“It is important for businesses to participate in sustainable solutions, and recycling is often the easiest and one of the most powerful ways to start,” says Scott Mouw, Environmental Supervisor for the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance. “By feeding valuable materials back into the economy, they help other companies grow and create jobs, helping expand our economy and feeding manufacturers who rely on recycled materials to make the products we use every day.”

Six Reasons Businesses Should Recycle the Big Five

The environmental impacts of a carefully formulated solid waste management plan can do more for the environment, and your business, than you might think. There are multiple beneficial and compelling reasons to recycle the big five—in general and at work.

1. Lower Cost for Waste Removal – Reducing your waste stream through recycling can lead to lower waste removal costs. Recycling services may still cost; however, rates can be negotiated to equal or better than waste removal costs alone.

“Many businesses that start comprehensive recycling programs also find that they can avoid waste collection and disposal costs that can only be expected to rise over time,” Mouw adds.

2. Income – When markets are good—especially for paper and old corrugated cardboard—recycling contracts can be negotiated with your recycling service provider to create income for your business as well.

3. Tax Credits – Twenty-five states offer tax credits for recycling market development. This means that if you work for a recycling industry or manufacturing business that uses recycled materials, you may qualify.

4. Recognition– Many communities and trade associations have recognition and awards programs for companies that recycle. Waste Wi$e, and the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) Paper Recycling Awards are good places to start.

5. Corporate Social Responsibility: Recycling is a long-term sustainability investment with triple-bottom-line rewards. Aside from the environmental ones, benefits also include improved public image, reaching new markets and improved employee morale.

6. Creates Green Jobs – In today’s economic climate, this speaks volumes. The EPA Jobs Through Recycling program estimates that recycling creates almost five times as many jobs as landfilling. That is 103,000 jobs in the northeastern United States alone, according to the EPA. Jobs created through recycling include collection and hauling, brokering of recovered materials and processing as well as the manufacturing and distribution of the new recycled-content products.

Tomorrow in Part 2, a look at common challenges encountered with business recycling programs.

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