John Frederick
Efficiency, affordability and convenience are the building blocks upon which exceptional recycling programs are constructed. Many elements are intertwined with these three components, but they stand out as the essential ingredients for success.
Over the past five years or so, leading solid waste and recycling organizations, communities and businesses across the country have increasingly embraced zero waste. Zero waste policies and programs establish practical ways to eliminate waste and safely reuse, recycle or compost discarded products and packaging. However, there has been confusion in the marketplace due to the many definitions of “zero” that are being used.
As we examine the challenges of the nation’s recycling landscape, it’s good to keep in mind two basic truths: There will always be a huge segment of the population that insists on opportunities to recycle. And recycling is here to stay.
Ideally, a product should find its way into the recycling stream only when it has truly reached its end-of-life. This is why reuse matters so much: Reuse gives a second life to the products we use every day by finding effective and creative ways to utilize, repurpose and distribute them.
Recycling is one of those words that remind us of the famously used phrase from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, which he used to describe his threshold test for obscenity. “I know it when I see it,” Stewart wrote in 1964.
Resource Recycling readers may be familiar with the jabs at recycling that came through several editorials distributed nationally recently. It feels like deja vu as we are reminded how these same basic attacks have been recycled over and over in the last 25 years.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries’ (ISRI) recently completed jobs study analysis concluded the U.S. scrap recycling industry is a major economic engine that supports 471,587 jobs. In addition, the study determined the recycling industry generates $11.2 billion in tax revenues for governments across the country and a total, positive economic impact of over $105.8 billion (2013).