November 10, 2020
In August, California became the first state in the U.S. to require any company making plastic bottles to use recycled plastic. Governor Newsom signed AB 793 into law on September 24th. Starting in 2022, big changes are coming to plastic bottles in the products available to consumers.Many food and beverage manufacturers use virgin plastic to […]
November 3, 2020
Take a trip back to the 1980s when recycling started gaining steam. School kids were informed to put their unneeded papers into boxes in the classroom. Those papers would get recycled. Bottles and glass became the next items being recycled. At the time, the focus was on keeping reusable materials out of overflowing landfills.Fast forward […]
October 26, 2020
Think about the plastics in your home. You likely have several different kinds of the seven most common plastics in your cupboards and closets. From plastic juice bottles to detergent containers, your home has a lot of plastic in some stage of use. Once it’s empty, what happens? It’s just as likely that your waste […]
October 21, 2020
In an older home, lighting fixtures are a leading cause of poor lighting, high electricity bills, and household waste. Whether it’s a stormy day and too dark to keep the lights off or it’s late at night and the sun set hours ago, you need the lights on, but it also drives up your electricity […]
October 14, 2020
The recycling industry has seen so many changes over the decades. As early as the late-1800s, men were going from one home to the next looking for worn-out clothing. Why? Companies bought the “rags” to turn them into paper and hired men to collect those rags. This was just the beginning. Every decade, recycling advances. […]
September 21, 2020
What do you do when your batteries are dead? How do you get rid of rechargeable electronics when they no longer hold a charge? Battery recycling is mandated in many areas, but consumers don’t always understand the process. If your hauler tells you not to put batteries in your recycling bin, you probably think they […]
September 16, 2020
Do you wear clothing until it’s threadbare and falling apart? Or, are you the type of person who wears an outfit until it is out of style? There’s nothing wrong with being fashionable, but it can lead to a lot of trash if you don’t recycle clothing properly. That’s where the problem lies. Few districts […]
September 10, 2020
What are the differences between circular and linear economies? With linear economics, items are used once. Everything in a linear economy is single-use. Circular economics improves upon that by taking items and using them as many times as possible. Closed-loop recycling goes hand in hand with a circular economy by reusing items instead of using […]
September 3, 2020
We’re all recycling as much as possible. We’re also generating trash every day. Per the EPA, Americans compost and recycle over 1.5 pounds of materials each day and trash almost 4.5 pounds of materials per day. People have made great changes that reduce the stream of waste going into landfills. People are composting food scraps. […]
August 31, 2020
How far back does plastics recycling go? The first recycling center to accept household plastics goes back to the early 1970s. Pennsylvania started plastics recycling, and there have been advancements over the years. Curbside pick-up started in the 1980s. Rhode Island made plastics recycling mandatory in 1986. By 1990, Coca-Cola was using some recycled plastic […]