San Francisco’s waste management program is unique because they have an ambitious goal: no waste sent to a landfill.

Instead they want to “divert as much material that can be recycled or composted as possible.” The city has recycling and composting but their composting is unique — it includes food scraps. They’ll even take paper plates with food on it.

The city is an example to other cities and claims that they recycle up to 90% of what’s being thrown away.

They hope to reach their goal by 2020.

Part of that was getting buy in and passing a law to make composting mandatory. “The mandatory [composting] was a much bigger deal to pass, because that was a direct behavioral thing we were asking people to do. We went through a long stakeholder process, meeting with apartment associations, business associations, building manager associations, the chamber, to get their impact and support on how mandatory would work.”

They also put in economic incentives – businesses and people save money by recycling because the city charges them by volume of waste. The city claims it can save hundreds if not thousands per month.

There is also training. “From helping them to physically set up a program and providing stickers and signs and doing training of janitors, we have a whole team of people who do this training.”

The success is pretty amazing: “From the time that mandatory composting was passed in April last year, we’ve gone from 400 tons a day of compostables being collected to almost 600 tons. Within a year we saw an increase of about a quarter in the number of businesses participating.”

I wonder if we could implement this in our city…read more at http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-12-the-city-that-said-no-to-garbage/

Related articles

• Mayor Wants to Start City Recycling Program (rubberecycle.com)

A Utah family is making a business out of recycled plastic barrels. It’s called “Starr High Tree Swings” and they come in all sorts of fun designs. My favorite is the airplane swing.

I can’t find their web site but the article I found has pictures of a bug swing and a bee design. The dad and his son make the swings. Dad Anthony used to work at a landfill and has always had an interest in recycling.

The swings are popular at day cares and in back yards and playgrounds.

Kids sit deep in the barrel and are strapped in with an adjustable safety belt. So it’s pretty safe – they don’t tip so it’s hard for kids to fall out of the swing. The family plans to start a line of sleds next.

We like the creativity – and what good fortune to have a last name like Starr. A good fit for a family that makes imaginative products for kids!

Related articles

• The Playground Workout (self.com)
• Old Tires Turned Into New Gym Floor (rubberecycle.com)
• First Recycled Rubber Sidewalks, Now Sinks (rubbermulch.com)

I’m a huge fan of newspapers and I do recycle them, but I prefer to reuse them whenever possible. I talked about how to use newspapers in your garden. What about this great and crafty idea: use them to make hip gift bags!

here’s the tutorial: http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-make-gift-bags-from-newspaper.html

I knew you would love it! You can use the funnies section for a kid’s gift. You could experiment with different sizes. There’s even a link to putting professional looking eyelets on your bags. I like the How About Orange version best but here is a funny YouTube video with another version so you can visualize how it works. I bet combining the two would work best.

So now you can save some money on gift bags – which are expensive – and have a fun project. Get the kids involved and help them see the benefits of reusing resources.

Related articles for recycled craft projects:

• Green Alternatives to Gift Bags (brighthub.com)
• 15 Crafts Using Recycled Materials (modernecohomes.com)

Computers and other electronics are not good for the environment. They become outdated quickly and get thrown away, filling landfills with potentially dangerous materials. It costs consumers and government a lot of cash to deal with this problem. Which leads to the question: Should the manufacturer be required to take back the items?

If manufacturers were required to take back items, that would encourage them to build their products differently. The green group Electronics TakeBack Coalition thinks companies should have to take back their electronics. Their Electronics Company Recycling Report Card, shows that Dell got the highest marks – a B. No one got an A.

Not only did companies not get A grades, most are failing. Companies like Sony, Canon, Brother and others got Fs even though some of them do take back products. Except they make it difficult and/or expensive to participate.

“But once that computer or printer gives out, take the time to check if the manufacturer offers a recycling program. If it’s practical enough, use it. If not, I suggest letting the manufacturer know you’re unhappy with its nonexistent or difficult-to-use take-back program, and that you’re taking your future business elsewhere.”

It is the manufacturers responsibility to take back their products? Should they have to pay to advertise and improve their systems to make it easy to participate? But that also probably means paying more for those products.I think that’s good because it’s closer to the true cost of owning the product. However, consumers are not usually asked to foot this bill directly.

Otherwise we’d have to pay for recycling our used tires (into products like rubber mulch) and other costs we’re not paying now.

What do you think?

Related articles

• Electronics Makers Get Recycling Grades (forbes.com)
• First Recycled Rubber Sidewalks, Now Sinks (rubbermulch.com)
• Old Tires Turned Into New Gym Floor (rubberecycle.com)

A mayor in London has an idea to try to recycle and reuse things that would otherwise end up in the trash. If you’ve ever heard of the email group Freecycle, the idea is based on that concept. Basically you can offer things that you don’t want and pick up things others in the group give away. It’s completely free.

The ‘Reuse Network’ is a little different than Freecycle though. It connects people with charities and groups to repair or pass on donations. It will tap into sites like Freegle and Freecycle to collect items. They’ll then store, refurbish and sell “everything from furniture, books, carpets and bikes to cookers and fridges.”

The  mayor believes the effort can divert 1.7mn reusable household items from the landfill. “This will help slash the mountain of waste being sent unnecessarily to landfill and cut the heavy economic costs of doing so.”

Along with that there will be a “reuse hotline” and web site.

The rest of the plan will encourage more plastics and metal recycling as well as food and garden waste composting. We wish they would include increasing tire recycling by encouraging businesses and schools to use rubber mulch products.

Rather than a scheme as the article puts it, this is a good way to cut down on waste. Think it will work? Let’s watch to see.

Related articles

• Old Tires Turned Into New Gym Floor (rubberecycle.com)
• First Recycled Rubber Sidewalks, Now Sinks (rubbermulch.com)
• Virigina Town Testing Rubber Mulch in Medians (rubbermulch.com)
• Using Freecycle.org to Recycle Household Items (brighthub.com)
• The city that said no to garbage (grist.org)
• About Park Benches Made of Recycled Materials (brighthub.com)

Just like with rubber mulch curbing or other products – old rubber tires have been put to good use and recycled. In this story, the recycled tires are going to make the weight room floor matting at a new middle school in Canada.

The project was funded by the Community Demonstration Grant Program.  Stz’uminus Secondary School and matched dollars up to $20,000. The school will be completed in a year.

The weight room’s floor will be made entirely of tires collected and recycled by Tire Stewardship BC. “More than 420,000 pounds recycled crumb rubber, the equivalent of 19,000 tires, will be used in projects.”

The benefits of recycled rubber products include: accessibility for wheelchairs on playground surfaces, better cushioning for joints on athletics tracks, low maintenance and easy upkeep.

We recently wrote about a Study Confirming the Safety of Recycled Rubber for Playgrounds and Athletic Fields. It looks like they made a good choice — hopefully more schools will consider this as a safer, greener and longer lasting gym surface.

See www.tirestewardshipbc.ca for information about the grants.

Related Recycled Rubber articles

• Virigina Town Testing Rubber Mulch in Medians (rubbermulch.com)
• First Recycled Rubber Sidewalks, Now Sinks (rubbermulch.com)

New York City hopes to pass legislation to put more recycling bins in public places. The reasoning is that people want more opportunities to recycle and adding more bins will encourage it. There are already about 300 bins in city public spaces, including at public schools and agencies. They want to add a lot more and also create a textile recycling program.

As part of the effort, they want to educate people on recycling and add other programs to help.  An educational campaign would include recycling workshops and guides to residential recycling. With all of the tourists and attractions, this would be great for the country.

I thought of something. Maybe New York City could try adding music to recycling bins. Or, perhaps encourage new jobs by giving incentives to the recycling industry like Philadelphia has.

What do you think? Is this a good idea? Let us know what you think in the comments.

I couldn’t pass up this story about recycling. It comes from Canada.  I guess people are just not motivated to recycle there so the city of Edmonton decided to jazz things up and drum up some response.

They are installing motion detectors on recycling bins so when you open the lid it plays a song. Not just any song, but a sad song. Recycling bins that try to guilt you into recycling. The idea is encourage people not to put the wrong things in the bins (a common problem everywhere).

Here are some other cities who see the value of recycling:

• Pittsburgh Understands the Value of Recycling
• Pennsylvania Recycling Industry Provides Needed Jobs

I’m not sure who would approve this in lean times but the city is spending $160,000 on what they call the “blue bin blues” campaign. What’s sort of sweet is how the tunes are being sung by a local musician. So hopefully he’s getting paid royalties. It costs them about $10 a recycling bin.

Maybe next they can hold a contest for local artists to paint motivational messages or themes on the bins. Or do wraps. Or hold contests between apartment buildings. And post it all on Facebook.

They are targeting people who live in apartments and condos because the number of people who recycle from that group recently dropped to 80% from 90%. A 10% drop, but still not bad! I think they could do something better – economic incentives. If you save money, get a bonus or otherwise reward behaviors I believe it’ll be more effective. However, if it’s publicity they want then this should do the trick!

The campaign runs until the end of June.

At Rubberecycle we recycle tires and turn them into rubber mulch and play ground surfaces. Our rubber mulch doesn’t play music but people have been known to sing out loud when they first experience how soft the surface is.

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• Edmonton introduces ‘singing’ blue bins (cbc.ca)
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Recycling programs are responsible for 80,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. The state has 1,600 municipal recycling programs. So Governor Edward G. Rendell has signed a bill to support the state’s economy by keeping valuable recycling programs.

The programs give manufacturers in the state raw materials to work with. The programs are funded by a “tipping fee” of $2 per ton on all waste managed at municipal waste landfills and resource recovery facilities in the state. This adds over $35 million a year for  recycling program.

It also saves the state in disposal costs and creates revenue – something that states need in this economy. The recycling industry in Pennsylvania also has a yearly payroll of more than $2 billion.

There is also a $1.25 million transfer from the recycling fund to clean up tire piles. Tires could also be recycled into products like rubber mulch and landscaping products.

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• Celebrate Earth Day – Recycle! (rubbermulch.com)
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Now it’s too bad I’m not referring to the oil slick from the Gulf of Mexico but now you can buy or sell used motor oil. The oil there wasn’t used, it was new. The online marketplace to buy/sell used motor oil was created by Recycle Markets of Mount Ida, Arkansas. Interesting, it’s not environmental concerns as much as economics that drives this engine. Instead, they want to help used oil generators understand the right price they should be asking for their oil. The price for used oil fluctuates a lot.

“Used oil has value, but that value can vary widely based on the quality of the used oil, the quantity available and where the used oil generator is located. In many cases, the generator has to rely on the service truck to establish a price. That price may or may not reflect accurate market conditions.”

Check it out the used oil stock market of sorts at www.usedoilmarket.com

It’s free to register – sort of like eBay you pay fees when you sell. But unlike eBay it is not an auction. Great efforts to reuse, reduce and recycle.

Related articles:

• New York City Expands Recycling (rubberecycle.com)
• Why Should Rubber Be Recycled? (rubbermulch.com)
• Pittsburgh Understands the Value of Recycling (rubberecycle.com)
• Nevada Opens First Tire Recycling Plant (rubberecycle.com)