Environmentalists. Every Day. America's Solid Waste Industry

Republic Services has published a new sustainability report. “The sustainability report was an opportunity to identify and discuss what we already do to protect the environment and to set a course to do more,” CEO James E. O’Connor said. “Being green is not just a philosophy at Republic. We’ve been doing it for years.” The report is available at www.republicservices.com/sustainability.

NSWMA’s Bruce Parker was interviewed by Zach Shtogren Big Think’s senior editor.  It is an interesting exchange about environmental issues related to the solid waste industry.

This online guide includes detailed information about the e-waste programs offered by a variety of electronics manufacturers and retailers.

The host of Green Earth Radio Patty Kovaks interviewed Waste Management Int’l VP Lynn Brown regarding Waste Managment’s dedication to environmental issues, their approach to landfills, plans for recycling and goals for public education. This interview may be downloaded from the Green Earth Radio archive.

Four Michigan State University students produced an award-winning YouTube video that encourages people to recycle glass. The video took first place in the Glass Packaging Institute’s Recycle Glass Day video competition.

In a NBC Evening News segment by NBC chief environmental reporter Anne Thompson called “Downtown Gives Red Light to Going Green,” NBC looked at the collapsing value of recycled materials, caused by the global economic crisis. NBC News anchor Brian Williams asked, “What happens when our recycled stuff loses its value?” Watch the segment on the NBC News site here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#28118786

In separate stories today, The New York Times and the Associated Press published news about the negative impact that the global financial crisis and recession has had on markets for recycled materials. The articles describe how municipalities, nonprofit groups and companies are being hit with additional costs. The articles discuss how the U.S. recycling infrastructure could be jeopardized if markets for recycled materials don’t soon recover.

President Bush highlighted the importance of recycling with a proclamation recognizing America Recycles Day. The full text of the proclamation is available here.

An article in the December 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine examines recycling, asking “Is Recycling Worth It?”. You can read the article here. The article discusses how technological advances pioneered by America’s solid waste industry have made recycling much more efficient and cost effective than it was decades ago. The web version of the article features a diagram showing how a single-stream sorting facility works. The online magazine also includes a list of 5 debunked myths of recycling. These are well-written articles; however, they author bases some of his assumptions on facts that no longer may be true, such as “the cost of raw materials has skyrocketed” and “few fear the precipitous plunge that rocked the recycling market in 1995.” In fact, as the global economy has weakened, commodity prices (including those of recycled materials) have fallen precipitously. American recyclers are motivated to continue increasing recycling, but the current economic situation poses serious challenges.

Election Day is over. It’s time to discard and recycle the campaign signs. All over the United States, thousands of solid waste and recycling collection trucks and workers are picking up your trash and recyclables. Red state, blue state, undecided state. It doesn’t matter. The hard working men and women in the solid waste and recycling workers do their job in a professional and environmental correct way, every day, no matter who you (or they) voted for. And tomorrow, and the next day, they will do it all over again.