Category Archives: Waste Recycling Innovations

Innovations in Waste Recycling

Add Green Design To Commercial Construction Projects

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According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in less than twenty years, the majority of the buildings in the US will need to be overhauled. Based on a recent research report by According to Architecture 20301, seventy five percent of commercial buildings in the US will need to be renovated or re-built by 2035. This is good news for businesses and those in the construction industry as renovation of existing structures or new construction presents the opportunity to improve energy efficiency – and businesses that harness and reduce their wasted materials and energy save more money than those who don’t.

The EPA offers tools and training materials to help contractors, facilities managers, and building owners incorporate waste reduction and energy savings at all levels – from pre-design through final renovation or construction.

Utilizing green, or environmentally friendly, building practices allows  business owners to stay competitive, reduce their bottom line expenses, and offer employees and tenants a productive environment that isn’t damaging to their heath or well-being of the community.

In the USA, nonresidential building projects classified as “green” now make up forty four percent of the construction market. That’s up from just two percent ten years ago! It is expected that the total percent of green construction projects will exceed the fifty percent mark by the close of 2015.

The average lifespan of a new building is fifty to one hundred years, so plan on incorporating ways to reduce energy and waste right from the start and maximize your savings over the building’s lifetime. The EPA’s Energy Star program can help your business to stay competitive and make the right choices for energy efficiency.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Green construction is here to stay. Don’t get left behind the competition because you’re wasting money on outdated facility management practices or inefficient construction. Take the time to learn about green construction and renovation and plan to use them in your next building project. It’s a win-win situation for your bottom-line, your employees, and your community!

Michigan Plans For Waste Materials Recycling Boost

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Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder is hoping to save taxpayers money by rolling out a new fifteen-point strategic plan designed to increase access to residential recycling services in all areas of the state.

In addition, Snyder has also enhanced the capabilities of the newly created Michigan Recycling Council so that implementation of the plan can begin without delay.

The new recycling plan contains four key components: implement better tracking and measure systems to gauge recycling progress; improve recycling awareness and education and make technical assistance more accessible; make recycling more convenient for all Michigan residents; and develop markets for the sale of recycled waste materials.

Currently, Michigan’s overall residential recycling rate is close to fifteen percent. Michigan’s recycling rate is far lower than other states in the Great Lakes region and below the national average. Recent studies have shown that over four hundred and thirty five million dollars worth of valuable metals, paper, glass, and plastics are not recycled and re-sold, but instead disposed of in landfills at a significant cost to the state and taxpayers.

The governor is recommending one million dollars be spent to launch the Michigan Recycling Council along with five hundred thousand dollars being made available as grants to support already existing local recycling programs. If even a portion of the currently discarded recyclable material can be resold, the program would not only pay for itself, but also provide an income source for the state.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: When was the last time you looked at your waste disposal and waste recycling habits at home and on the job? Are people recycling all that they can, or are some valuable items ending up in the trash? Scheduling periodic evaluations can help to save you money and make sure all residents or employees are doing their part!

College Campuses Go Green With RecycleMania

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Final results show that colleges and universities involved with the RecycleMania campus recycling competition composted and recycled nearly ninety million pounds of organic waste and recyclable waste material during the 2014 contest.

In total, four hundred and sixty one educational institutions across the United States and Canada participated with more than five million students involved. Ohio’s Antioch University claimed first place with a per student recycling rate of slightly over ninety three percent. Kalamazoo College in Michigan came in first at nearly forty nine pounds for most recycled pounds per person. Florida’s Valencia College took top honors in the category for least waste generated per student with a little under three pounds.

The eight-week annual college campus competition is organized in part by Keep America Beautiful, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the College and University Recycling Coalition. The recycling competition was started in 2001 as a friendly wager between Ohio University and Miami University to see who could boost recycling levels the most. There are now over six hundred schools that have participated in the challenge and the average total weight of all materials composted and recycled by all participants combined exceeds ninety one million pounds annually.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If you’re a facilities manager or maintenance executive for a college or university, participating in the annual RecycleMania competition is a great way to jump start or improve your waste reduction and recycling efforts. It’s also an ideal and affordable way to secure valuable recycling bins and educational materials and resources that can help your campus to recycle waste materials more without hurting your bottom line. If your school hasn’t participated in RecycleMania yet, there’s no time like the present to make a change and sign up for the 2015 competition. You’ll go green and save green at the same time!

 

Opportunity Grows With Increased Plastics Recycling

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While the overall recycling rate may have dipped slightly in the United States recently, the recycling of materials made of rigid plastic, many labeled as HDPE plastics, increased by ten percent in 2012 to a level greater than one billion pounds. The final total of the amount of collected nearly triples the amount of the material that was recycled in 2007 when tracking and reporting of rigid plastics recycling began. Rigid plastic is now considered one of the fastest growing materials in the recycled goods market. The increase in availability of recycled materials ensures that manufacturers needing the material to produce new goods can procure them at lower prices.

In addition, a year over year increase in over eighty two million pounds collected compared to data from 2011 in attributed to the fact that recycling firms and municipalities are developing efforts to attract hard plastics recycling from both residential and business customers. Close to sixty percent of the recycling processing of rigid plastics takes place in the US and Canada.

Polyethylene and polypropylene make up over seventy percent of all rigid plastics collected in the US and over sixty percent of all Americans now have convenient access to recycling programs that accept rigid plastic materials.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Does your home, business, or community offer convenient recycling for rigid plastic materials? If you’re paying money every month to dispose of these waste materials in a landfill, you’re missing the chance to go green and save green! If you generate large amounts of waste materials of this nature, take some time to look into the re-sale market for rigid plastics. If you generate small or minimal amounts, find out where and how you can get them recycled. It’ll help the planet and your bottom line at the same time!

Airline Reduces Waste With Green Cups

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International airline carrier, United Airlines, has recently announced that it will introduce a brand new, green friendly hot beverage cup to use in its United Club in-flight drink service and hospitality rooms starting in March of 2014.

In the news release, the Chicago-based airline discussed the company’s shift to using an insulated InCycle Cup to replace the Styrofoam coffee cups that are currently in use. The new cup is completely recyclable and manufactured from fifty percent recycled materials. The InCycle cup is produced in the United States by MicroGreen Polymers.

MicroGreen’s technology for their recyclable beverage cups comes from re-using recycled water bottles and other beverage bottles made of plastic. One recycled plastic bottle creates four and one half InCycle cups. The InCycle cup is insulated, which eliminating more waste by removing the need for a hot beverage protective sleeve.

The switch comes as part of United’s strategy to evaluate all operational recycling to discover new opportunities to cut waste disposal and boost cost effective recycling. Additionally, the airline is simplifying the recycling process for flight attendants and grounds workers to increase overall recycling amounts. Over the prior six years, United recycled almost twenty four million pounds of waste materials generated through its aircraft and on-ground facilities.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: The market for recycled materials is always changing and improving. When was the last time you looked for environmentally friendly and waste reducing alternative products for your business or home? If it’s been some time, you might want to check again. You could be pleasantly surprised by the cost of green friendly products and how much money you’ll be able to save in the long run when you stop putting garbage in the trash and start recycling it instead!

 

EPA OKs Recycled Coal Ash For Concrete And Wallboard

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently approved waste coal ash as an acceptable recycled material to be used in the production of concrete and wallboard for construction purposes. Coal ash is the leftover waste material when coal boilers are used for steam power generation in large-scale industrial settings.

In a recent press release, the EPA stated that it had determined that using CCR’s or coal combustion residuals in construction materials such as wallboard and concrete is an acceptable alternative to the use of virgin materials or to other waste materials that rank less favorably on the EPA’s environmental benchmarks and well-being scale.

The EPA determined that the waste coal ash could be used as a portland cement substitute in concrete as an alternative to mined gypsum in wallboard. As nearly half of all coal ash is currently used in cement and wallboard, the EPA approval will help to boost sustainability and further lessen environmental impacts. Currently, a little more than half of all coal ash produced is placed in landfills – the more opportunities there are for the recycled material to be used productively, the less need there is for ground surface space to dispose of it.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Staying aware of the latest EPA developments can help you and your business save money. If your business deals with coal ash residues or concrete and wallboard, this recent approval may help you to reduce your disposal costs or reduce the price of commonly used materials. Paying attention to news from the EPA and your state’s environmental agency can help keep you in the know about grant opportunities, legal changes, and training and development programs that can help your business, employees, and community!

 

National Football League Goes Green

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The NFL, also known as the National Football League, wanted to make sure this year’s Superbowl Sunday was the most “green friendly” championship football game ever. Environmentally focused plans for the event included a strategy for collecting food scraps and food waste generated at and around the stadium for use in composting and powering biodiesel generators. Additionally, stadium grounds managers ave been planting several new trees around the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to help reduce carbon emissions.

Close to eight tons of food scraps and organic waste material were generated during the Super Bowl, and this year, instead of disposing of the waste in landfills, a giant compactor was used to collected the material for transporting to a regional food waste processing facility. The compost generated will be used by the stadium for landscaping purposes.
In addition, the stadium also wanted to recycling all waste cooking oil from its on-site food stands and restaurants for re-process as biodiesel fuel that could be used to power the generators that supply energy to Super Bowl Boulevard, a large recreation area near the stadium that features entertainment. The expectation is that the collected waste oil will contribute up to a third of the total power needed to supply the sports complex during a game.

After the game was completed, the NFL also donated all fabric signage, totaling several miles, to area nonprofits groups for re-sale and re-use.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If your city or town has recreation areas and popular sports fields, take a look at how waste materials generated are disposed of. Is your town paying to send everything to a landfill or are your city administrators being smart and looking at ways to save taxpayer dollars by re-use and recycling?

Mattress Recycling In California

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Earlier this year, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that would require the recycling of all old, unwanted mattresses by all residents in the state as well as businesses operating within state lines.

The new law aims to establish a statewide recycling program for mattresses by offering consumers free and easily accessible locations for mattress collection, drop-off and recycling. With this new law, California becomes the third state in the United States and the first in the western part of the country that requires mattress manufacturers and sellers to accept and process used mattresses for recycling.

Unlike other states, California’s regulation does not pass the cost of recycling on to consumers. The recycling program will be financed by a new charge levied on the sales of new mattress. Because of a mattress’ large size and costs for landfill disposal, they are frequently illegally discarded along roadsides and hills, resulting in blight, health threats to the public, and millions of extra dollars spend by municipalities in addition cleanup expenses. Because of the remove of a consumer fee, individuals such as landlords, home-owners, and small scale real estate developers will have choices for recycling old mattresses while cutting back on the number of those that are dumped illegally.

The state also hopes that recycling mattresses will contribute to the growth of green jobs and help boost the California’s waste reduction and recycling goals. The bill was also supported by mattress retailers doing business in California, as well as municipalities, business organizations and environmental groups. The statewide recycling program will be overseen and monitored by CalRecycle for cost effectiveness and recycling efficiency

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Do you know what the regulations are for mattress recycling in your state? Components in a mattress have value in the recycling after-market, so if you’re not recycling them, you’re losing money by letting them take up space in a landfill!

Ohio City Boosts Recycling Efforts

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Officials and administrators from the mid-western city of Columbus, Ohio, have recently decided to expand its municipal waste recycling program to include services to apartment complexes and condominium buildings. In many municipalities multi-family residences are excluded from city run waste collection, with property owners required to contract with private waste haulers for trash removal and recycling services.

Columbus’ Department of Public Service is set to expand the city’s RecyColumbus program in early March of next year. To be eligible to participate in the city’s new service offering, condo complexes and apartment buildings, along with new row-house and town-home developments in certain city neighborhoods, must have sufficient space for storage of the sixty-four-gallon recycling bins that the city requires for its biweekly recycling collections.

In addition, starting in early March, the city will also launch a weekly yard waste collection program. This is an enhancement in service from the current alternating week pick up schedule. City officials hope that the weekly pick ups for outdoor organic material will make the waste collection system more efficient and simpler for resident to participate in.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If you’re a landlord or multi-unit property owner or manager, it pays to have your municipality involved with recycling services. The more tenants or renters recycle, the less you need to pay for trash disposal services! Going green can save you green!

Glass Recycling Basics

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For hundreds of years, glass has been used for containers, holding everything from foods to liquids to precious jewels and gold. But did you know that the glass that holds your water as well as the glass that is used in your computer can be recycled and re-used many times over without losing its strength and durability? Unlike many other substances which break down and lose their usability quickly, old glass has many future applications.

Americans are responsible for adding almost twelve million tons of glass to their municipal solid waste streams. However, only twenty eight percent of that total amount is recycled and put to further use. Most recycled glass comes from food and beverage containers, which can easily be placed in curb-side recycling pick-up bins or dropped off at local transfer stations. Glass is also found in items such as household appliances, furniture, and electronics such as computers and televisions.

Glass from beverage and food containers can be recycled many times over. In fact, ninety percent of all glass that is recycled is used in the manufacturing of new glass containers. Additionally, the recycled glass is used to make kitchen tiles, wall insulation, and counters. Businesses responsible for producing these items require a steady supply of crushed, recycled crushed glass to supplement their new materials. When recycled glass is in short supply, manufacturing slows, prices increase, and business suffers. However, with increased glass recycling efforts and higher recycling rates, these problems don’t have to occur.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If you’re interested in knowing more about the benefits of glass recycling, there are three resources to consider: the Glass Packaging Institute in Washington, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries; and Clean Washington Center, which helps to develop re-sale opportunities for recycled glass.