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#1Crystal Fiedler

Jul 22, 2017Jul 22 at 7:25pm

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I believe recycling promotes a strong healthy community. In an article written by United States Environmental Protection Agency, “A community’s commitment to a cleaner environment is often considered to reflect its commitment to a higher quality of living.”

I am proud that my city has an extensive recycling program to limit what goes into landfills. The City Recycling Program was established over 17 years ago, in response to a "State mandated law requiring cities to reduce their waste by 50% by the year 2000". As part of this effort, each resident received three containers - 1 green for green-waste, 1 blue for co-mingled recyclables, and 1 black for refuse. We were also given a handy list of what is acceptable to recycle or not (picture attached for reference).

In an excerpt from my City’s website, “Starting in 2016, businesses, including commercial or public entities like schools, hospitals, stores, restaurants, industrial businesses, for-profit or nonprofit organizations, residential dwellings with 5+ units, and others must recycle their organic waste over time based on the amount and type of waste the business produces on a weekly basis, with full implementation realized in 2019.”

Not sure where to start?  The website provides helpful tips for first time recyclers:

• Office paper and mail, newspapers, magazines and catalogs, cardboard, glass and plastic bottles and containers, plastic bags and film, and cans. 

Happy Recycling!

References

Recycling: A Component of Strong Community Development. (2008, September 16). Retrieved July 22, 2017, from https://archive.epa.gov/region4/rcra/mgtoolkit/web/html/community.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

(n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2017, from http://www.cityofwhittier.org/depts/pw/recycling.asp (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Hammond, S. C., & Christensen, L. J. (2016). Corporate and social responsibility: Road map for a sustainable future [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://ashford.content.edu (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Recycling Three Container System.png

#2 Hayden Green

SundayJul 23 at 10:32am

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Santa Maria, CA has a pretty effective Green Waste Recycling program that recycles leaves, fallen fruit, grass clipping, plant pruning and clean wood. Although it cost money initially to recycle, it also costs money not to recycle because we lose the potential compost that the “greens” can make and we fill our landfills to quickly forcing us to build new ones. “The green waste recycling program will extend the life of the landfill for a number of years. By extending the life of the landfill, the City can save money deferring capital costs to a build a new landfill.” (Green Waste Recycling, 2017) By recycling the “greens” the city is able to reuse the waste by making it in to compost for farms. Santa Maria is made up of a lot of farm land. Getting to use the compost is effective in helping out our farmers produce the very foods we depend on.

I think some steps that local businesses could take to improve the economic incentive for recycling could be to offer some sort of discount or points system for customers for every item that is recycled at their business. This gets tricky because all of this costs initially. We need to do our best to find a way to make recycling profitable for small businesses and beneficial for the consumer. There might be a way for a business to have a green waste collection system that they can then sale to local farmers for the use of compost. My grandmother had a small home use composter that essentially was mechanical and was able to turn, break down, and mix the “greens” that she threw into it. Maybe a grocery store could try to draw consumer attention to their business by offering a 5 or 10 percent discounts on select items for a period of time for “X” amount of pounds of useable green waste brought into their composter. Grocery stores sell a lot of “greens” and thus in a way would be using the “Cradle2Cradle” method mentioned in our text. “Cradle-to-cradle design asks adherents to model business and industry on natural processes so that the outputs from one process become the inputs for another and no resources are wasted.” (Hammond, S.C., & Christensen, L.J. 2016 p. 5.3) The grocery store could possibly turn a profit by attracting more customers and selling the compost directly to local farmers, and in turn eliminating “green” waste. I’ve researched around and I could not find any businesses in my area that have an alliance for recycled materials.

Green Waste Recycling. Retrieved from http://www.cityofsantamaria.org/city-government/departments/utilities-sewer-water-trash/green-waste-recycling (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Hammond, S. C., & Christensen, L. J. (2016). Corporate and Social Responsibility: Road Map for a Sustainable Future