Category Archives: Waste or Recycle Material

Waste Recycling Materials

Commercial Food Waste Disposal Bans

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Massachusetts will be the latest state to put in place a statewide ban on disposing of commercial food waste. The new regulation is expected to begin on October 1 of 2014.

The goal of the new regulation is designed to keep food waste from landfills and instead use it for energy-generating purposes and for creating composting. The Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Massachusetts will be in charge of enforcement for the ban.

The new rules will require any business that disposes a minimum of one ton of organic materials, including food scraps, each week to re-purpose or donate any usable food in that amount being disposed of. All remaining food waste that is not fit for human consumption will be sent for anaerobic digestion to be used for conversion to energy, or for use in composting and animal-feeding facilities.

State officials believe the new food waste disposal ban is necessary for attaining the waste disposal reduction plans the state has enacted. Massachusetts has established a goal to reduce waste by thirty  percent in 2020 and by eighty percent by 2050.

Food waste materials from household and small businesses are currently exempt from the rule. It is expected that the ban will affect close to two thousand large businesses such as grocery store chains, universities, schools, hotels, convention facilities, hospitals, and large restaurants.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If your business is producing large amounts of waste food and organic matter, it will pay to start investigating cost-cutting re-use and recycling strategies now. Better to be ahead of the state mandates now than to be struggling to comply later on. The early bird who “goes green” now might also save the most “green” in the long run!

 

Recycling Returns To New Orleans

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It’s taken close to nine years, but the Louisiana city of New Orleans is now officially re-launching curbside recycling services for both residents and businesses living and operating in the Central Business District and French Quarter of the city.

The waste recycling services will be available for all residents and small businesses in those neighborhoods starting at the end of January, 2014. It is estimated that over four thousand residential and business locations will be eligible for the curbside recycling pick-ups. All recycling services are expected to happen on a weekly schedule for those in the target neighborhoods. Waste materials that will be accepted for recycling include all forms of paper, paperboard and cardboard, plastic beverage and food containers, and metal containers and cans.

Recycling services to these areas have been suspended since 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. The Sanitation Department for the city is currently distributing eighteen-gallon size bins to residents and businesses at no additional cost. While these recycling bins are slightly smaller than those used in other neighborhoods the city hopes they will be easier to use and store for businesses and homes with limited space.

Curbside recycling services are currently available in other neighborhoods of the city for residential properties and small businesses. Residents in the historic French Quarter and Central Business District had been lobbying local officials that inclusion of their neighborhoods were necessary components to help the area achieve its municipal sustainability goals.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Whether it’s your town or business, it’s important to include everyone in your waste disposal and recycling plans. Every person, no matter where they’re located, is going to generate trash – and if you’re not making an effort to increase recycling and re-use, that’s money and profit coming out of your bottom line!

Court Upholds Plastic Bag Ban

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The Court of Appeals in California has recently upheld the city of San Francisco’s law banning the use of single-use and thin-film plastic bags in restaurants, grocery stores, delis, and retail shops doing business within the city limits.

The court’s upholding of the law now establishes a legal precedent that additional California cities may use as they attempt to create regulations that are modeled after the San Francisco one. San Francisco’s ban applies to all non-compostable plastic bags that a business would give to a customer upon checkout as well as imposing a ten-cent fee on other types of bags, such as paper or compostable plastic, that the business would provide to customers.

San Francisco first started its plastic bag ban back in 2007, which was directed at chain supermarkets and pharmacies. The law now applies to all retailers as well as retail food establishments. The law was opposed by the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, based in Los Angeles, claiming that banning plastic bags violates health and sanitation standards. It is unknown if the group will appeal the decision to a higher court. However, as the public approval for limiting plastic bags use increases throughout the state, it has become easier for both small and large communities to enact regulations that limit and restrict the use of plastic bags that cannot be recycled.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Even if your town or municipality doesn’t have regulations about plastic bag use what are you doing to limit your use of plastics that cannot be recycled or re-used? As more and more customers look to support environmentally friendly businesses, you may find that you’ll make more “green” when you adopt green-friendly business practices!

 

Beverage Group Promotes Bottle Recycling

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International beverage group, Dr Pepper Snapple has recently renewed its corporate partnership with the Keep America Beautiful non-profit group with a commitment to issue three hundred thousand dollars worth of environmentally focused grants to assist community groups, schools, and municipalities to provide beverage bottle recycling bins and collection centers to consumers.

The Connecticut-based Keep America Beautiful recently announced the funding agreement with the Texas-based beverage and bottling manufacturer. The new funding will provide for a second year of the Keep America Beautiful Parks Recycling Grant Program, which helps to provide recycling bins in public parks of all sizes throughout the United States and promote education and public awareness campaigns to encourage citizens to recycle when visiting recreational areas.

The grant program is currently accepting applications from those agencies interested in obtaining recycling bins on its website. Non profit environmental groups affiliated with Keep America Beautiful are eligible to submit a request as well as all government agencies at the state and local levels that are responsible for recycling activities in recreational areas such as parks, community green spaces, playgrounds, athletic fields, and public green-ways.

In the grant’s first year of operation, over seven hundred recycling bins were placed in parks, athletic fields, neighborhood green-space, beaches, and walking trails. The program provided thirty three grants to agencies in twenty three states in all regions of the country.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If you’re looking to keep your municipality clean and reduce waste, installing more recycling bins can help. Grant opportunities can help you save twice: once when you receive a bin for no charge and then again when you have less trash to dispose of in landfills!

 

 

Denver Composting Continues Expansion

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The city of Denver, Colorado has once again expanded its residential food scraps and organic waste composting program.

Denver Composts reported that last year the program more than doubled the residents served by its program through an increase of over two thousand five hundred homes in the city. Denver Composts is a collaboration between the city’s Public Works Department and the Office of Environmental Health.

Currently, the composting program charges a subscription fee for its service to residents living in the neighborhoods where pick-ups are scheduled. The cost is slightly less than thirty dollars for three months of service or a little over one hundred dollars for the entire year. The cost of the composting does not appear to be a deterrent to participation in those areas where the service is offered.

Residents in the target areas who enroll in Denver Composts are provided with a a two-gallon kitchen pail and a large green compost bin. Denver Recycles has weekly picks up for the composting materials which collects food, yard debris, and non-recyclable paper for composting.The program began five years ago with a little over two thousand participating homes and has been carefully monitored to ensure financial stability and sustainability.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Composting food waste and organic material is becoming a big issue for cities, towns, businesses, and homes. Even if your municipality doesn’t currently offer curbside composting, with a little effort you may be able to find a outside business that is interested in converting your food waste into compost or bio-fuel. You might just be able to save some “green” while going green with your waste materials!

California City Leads In Food Waste Diversion

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded Cupertino, California the national Food Recovery Challenge Innovation Award for the municipality’s efforts in reducing food waste. The city’s efforts were bolstered by its ability to collaborate with a local waste hauler, Reclogy, and design a strategy to help local businesses compost their food scraps and food waste.

The city has a long-term plan to reach a seventy five percent waste diversion goal by 2015, and with the new food composting program, more than two thousand tons of food waste from both local businesses and residents was successfully diverted. The city is working with residents and businesses to encourage food waste recycling as an simple way to cut back on their trash disposal while helping to preserve the environment.

Food scraps account for twenty five percent of all waste sent to landfills, but limiting food waste is an easy, and cost effective way to cut back on the production of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas as well as preserve space for non-recyclable items in local landfills.

As part of their outreach strategy, Recology, the EPA, and city officials held workshops for local grocery stores that provided information about how managers could include food waste reduction techniques to save money on their operations costs. One grocery chain, Marina Food, used that information to divert over five hundred tons of food waste from their annual waste disposal budget.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: What is your home, town, or business doing to address food waste? If you’re still paying to put your food scraps in the garbage or landfill, you need to start investigate food recycling options! You’ll be able to save green and go green when you look at the alternatives!

New NYC Ban Includes Food Waste Diversion

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The city council of New York City has recently passed a Styrofoam food container ban and will also require those businesses that are considered substantial generators of food waste to compost their food scraps and organic materials.

The new law will be enacted in July 2015 and will prohibit food items, be it from a restaurant, deli, or food truck, to be packaged in polystyrene.

Polystyrene containers cannot be recycled in New York City, but organic and food waste can be, so the new legislation is seen as a big step forward in improving the municipality’s waste diversion and recycling rates. For those businesses classified as the largest food waste generators, organic material separation and composting requirements will also being in July of 2015.

The City of New York has a relatively low recycling rate compared to other cities in the United States and the administration’s strategic plan is to double the existing recycling rate to reach thirty percent waste diversion by the year 2017. The diverted food scraps and food waste will be used for both the production of compost and biogas. The move to enact the new regulations are seen as a way to reduce the city’s costs for waste disposal in landfills and help to bolster the growing “green jobs” movement in composting and biogas production and distribution in New York State.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Two of the biggest changes municipalities of all shapes and sizes are making are the moves to food waste diversion and banning the use of polystyrene containers. Even if these changes haven’t yet appeared in your community, be pro-active and start looking for alternatives now. Your customers will see you as a “green” leader and that can certainly help your bottom line!

Food Waste Recycling Arrives In New Mexico

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The city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is now partnering with a local organic waste recycling business to launch a pilot program for the collection of food scraps and organic waste.

Santa Fe’s Division of Environmental Services recently announced that the test program will also include local restaurants and hotels that offer in-house dining and catering services as part of the contract with the not-for-profit group, Reunity Resources.  Reunity will be responsible for collecting and transferring all food waste to local composting facilities. One approved composting facility is Payne’s Organic Soil Yard which will turn the food into compost and then make it available for sale to the general public.

The city is planning to lease food collection bins to Reunity Resources. It is expected that all kinds of food waste – include both food scraps as well as uneaten but unusable food – will be accepted. Reunity is currently raising additional funds needed to acquire specialized collection and processing equipment.

The food and organic waste composting program is part of Santa Fe’s overall strategic goal of becoming a zero waste community. The city currently provides curbside recycling services for all residents and also offers reduced rates for commercial recycling to encourage business and industrial participation in waste diversion and reduction.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: If your town or business is looking to improve recycling services and programs, take a look at collaborating with a local or regional environmental non-profit group. You may find a way to achieve your goals while staying within your budget! Remember, going “green” helps to save money while saving the environment!

Staples Brings Recycling Online

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The popular office and business supply store, Staples Inc., is now offering all customers an online recycling option for the ink and toner cartridges used in computer printers and copy machines.

The Massachusetts-based company said it is adding this online recycling option to supplement and expand its long-existing and popular in-store “Staple Rewards” toner and ink recycling program.

The company believes the online option for Staples Rewards members will add a level of convenience and ease – in particular for those patrons and businesses that are not in close geographical proximity to a physical store location. Members will be able to print a pre-paid shipping label with direction on how to send their empty cartridges and will receive two dollars in Staples Rewards for each one received.

To date, Staples has recycled over three hundred and fifty million cartridges since starting the program in 2005. The total weight of all recycled metals and plastics collected exceeds one hundred and eighty two million pounds. In the last three years alone, over sixty million cartridges were recycled each year for a total recycled amount of sixty four million pounds of e-waste. The chain store’s worldwide goal is to recycle more than forty million pounds of electronics waste each year by 2020.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: When you’re looking to increase your waste recycling and decrease your waste disposal, look to the needs of your employees and customers. How can you make recycling easier and more convenient for them? Adding a new program or making subtle enhancements can help you to save green and go green at the same time!

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!