Every year after Christmas, the streets are lined with orphaned Christmas trees awaiting their fate as the garbage trucks slowly make their rounds. In the past few years, New York City has been urging people to recycle their trees with Mulchfests. What this entails is that for two days after Christmas the city sets up centers in parks around New York and the five boroughs where people can bring their trees to be shredded into wood chips for free. Tree owners have the option of taking the wood chips home with them in a biodegradable bag provided by the city, or leaving them for the city’s use.

This year the Mulchfest will take place on January 7 and 8 in 70 sites around the city. 35 of the sites will be chipping sites, where the wood is shredded on the spot, and the other 35 will be drop-off sites, from where the city will collect the trees to be recycled. Last year, close to 17,000 Christmas trees were recycled, and New York officials hope to beat that number this year.

The Mulchfest is just one of the ways that the U.S. federal and state governments are trying to bring awareness to the importance of recycling and reusing. While wood chips have many practical uses, in some ways rubber mulch trumps wood. Rubber chips are also recycled, made from old tires. They are more durable than wood, lasting many years, and are great for use in playgrounds, horse arenas, and gardens.

Those who take part in the Mulchfest are trying to do their part to help clean up our planet. In the same vein, it is worthwhile to look into the many uses of rubber mulch, and continue the chain of recycling.

It’s been 6 years but the playground project is complete and the parents, children and community who worked to build it couldn’t be happier. Children in Spokane, Washington are enjoying a new universal playground. The new playground features a safe, environmentally-friendly and accessible surface made out of rubber.

“The playground, a project of the Spokane Regional Health District, was developed to provide increased physical activity opportunities to children with disabilities.

Parents of children with disabilities helped design the playground. It includes traditional playground elements like slides and swings as well as a climbing wall and a music area with drums and bells. The playground’s surface is flat and made of recycled rubber tiles to accommodate children in wheelchairs or walkers. All equipment is accessible by ramp.

The surface was similar to our rubber bond product that is a smooth, durable surface that doesn’t overheat in the hot summer months. Many community groups worked to ensure a successful project, including: Rotary clubs, the Spokane Regional Health District, Logan Neighborhood Council, Spokane Parks and Recreation Department, Spokane Parks Foundation, Spokane International Airport Fire Department, landscapers and many others pulled together to make the project happen.

The playground will be owned and maintained by Spokane Parks and Recreation. Check out Mission Park, located at 1210 E. Mission Ave., Spokane

Today is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. Rubberecycle encourages you to think about how you contribute to the conservation of the earth’s resources. A big part of Earth Day is choosing to recycle and to buy recycled products.

Here are 5 simple tips to celebrating Earth Day with actions that preserve resources:

1. unplug electronics when they aren’t in use (like your computer)
2. turn out lights to conserve energy (and use low energy light bulbs)
3. recycle (this one is our favorite!)
4. ride your bike, bus or carpool to reduce air pollution
5. Support alternative energy sources – some states are offering incentives with tax rebates for going green.

As part of the Billion Acts of Green, an initiative organized by the Earth Day Network’s Green Generation campaign, more than 30 million people will use social media to encourage green activities. But the real changes come from changing lifestyle habits and supporting recycling by choosing products that are made with recycled materials.

Not only citizens, but companies should look for ways to lessen their impact on the earth. We’re trying to do our part by recycling tires that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Rubberecycle manufactures a unique rubber granule product recycled from 100% scrap tires. Consumers love our rubber mulch because it’s safe, economical, long-lasting and most importantly, environment-friendly.

We encourage you to use Rubber Mulch for you landscaping. Don’t cut down the trees for wood chips! Rubber Mulch is softer and safer! In honor of Earthday!

Also, teach your kids and family about what they can do. Here are some ideas on how to celebrate Earth Day at home: http://holidays.kaboose.com/earthday-activities.html

However you celebrate we hope you’ll go green this Earth Day – and not just for the day – but for the rest of the year too.

Related articles

• Curby Teaches Kids about Recycling (rubberecycle.com)
• RubbeRecycle Donates Rubber Mulch for Playground to Honor Arbor Day (prweb.com)
• Earth Day: Happy 40 Year Anniversary (rubberecycle.com)

Tomorrow is Earth Day, so happy Earth Day to you and to our earth. It’s been forty years since the first Earth Day and we’ve learned a lot since then. Here are some rules to living a life that is guided by science and not by myths from the book “Whole Earth Discipline.”

1. Climate change is a huge issue today. When Earth Day was established we weren’t good climate models. We didn’t then predict it. People thought the bigger issues would be overpopulation and that this would lead to our being wiped out.

2. New technology can have side effects. Anti-nuclear power “led to more reliance on electricity generated by coal plants spewing carbon.” We got “industrial agriculture” but that “led to the lower-yield farms that require more acreage, leaving less woodland to protect wildlife and absorb carbon.”

3. Organic food – food for the rich? Organic food hasn’t been shown to be any healthier or more nutritious than non organic. If people eat organic they spend more on food and have to make tough choices. When green marketers tried to get people in Zambia to choose organic, they did — at a cost. Their children eat fewer fruits and vegetables — and sometimes nothing at all. Zambia rejected emergency food for starving citizens because the grain had been genetically engineered.

“Total reliance on organic farming would force African countries to devote twice as much land per crop as we do in the United States,” he writes. “An organic universe sounds delightful, but it could consign millions of people in Africa and throughout much of Asia to malnutrition and death.”

Want more tips for a better environment? Check out this story in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/science/20tier.html

Happy Earth Day from Rubberecycle! We turn recycled tires into practical and safe solutions for playgrounds, landscaping and more.

I’m in Las Vegas on vacation, so this story caught my eye. Nevada residents have sent about 2 million used tires each year to landfills. Now those tires can be recycled. A new state-of-the-art recycling plant opened in Las Vegas this past December.

The facility takes tires from Nevada and parts of Utah, Arizona and California. Phoenix Recycling Technologies said, “we’re producing commodities from the waste. For each ton we produce, it lowers the environmental impact of producing new materials.”

The end product produced is called “crumb rubber,” and is used as turf dressing on natural grass and on artificial playing surfaces. It’s also an ingredient for rubberized asphalt for roads, material for equestrian arenas (it reduces damage to a horse’s bones, joints, ligaments and soft tissue) and for playground surfaces (imagine what it can do to help children by avoiding injuries).

Other benefits for playgrounds include that the material will hold its color, last longer than other compounds and won’t cause splinters, attract insects or animals, or stain clothing.

Crumb rubber also can be used as a landscape mulch.

“All parts of the tire are recycled with 65 percent returned as crumb rubber, 25 percent scrap steel and 10 percent fiber.”

The company worked with Nevada state Sen. Allison Copening, D-Las Vegas, who introduced legislation to encourage tires to be recycled and ban their disposal in most of the state’s landfills. The legislation doesn’t require recycling in rural areas and bans dumping whole tires in municipal landfills.

While the cost may be higher up front, the recycled tire surfaces are a good value because they last. “Although crumb rubber blends often are more expensive than conventional asphalt, Copening said the durability of the finished product could make it worth writing into construction specifications.”

Source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/02/states-first-tire-recycling-plant-opens/

Related articles

• Go Ahead and Play (rubbermulch.com)
• Pittsburgh Understands the Value of Recycling (rubberecycle.com)
• Earthquake Rebuilding with Recycled Tire Logs (treehugger.com)