Skip to Content

[X] CLOSEMENU

NERC Blog

A Call to Corporate Leadership – Join Together for Bold, Smart, Swift Action to Improve the US Recycling System

This guest blog was written by Keefe Harrison, CEO of the Recycling Partnership, and is slightly edited from the originally posting on their website.

In February 2020, the pressing need to protect our environment from plastic waste by activating a truly circular economy is top of mind.  This is an important point in time to pivot our society’s current make-to-waste approach to a more circular economy – one that focuses on everything from smart chemistry and design, production, all the way through to reuse and recycling.

While companies begin to align around activating the circular economy in the U.S., the reality of delivering those goals shines a bright light on the need to first overhaul the U.S. recycling system.  A challenge in its own right, it is magnified when put against the burden of inexpensive waste disposal, growing costs for communities, and the pricing disparity between virgin and recycled content plastics.

Now is the time for action. 

 It is clear…

Resolve To Recycle More, Better in 2020

This guest blog is courtesy of The Recycling Partnership.

Tired of the same old new year’s resolutions? You know, the ones you abandon before February? 2020 is the dawning of a new decade, not just a new year – why not resolve to recycle more where you work, live, learn, buy, and play? It’s not only a simple resolution, it’s one that benefits the environment, creates jobs, reduces litter, and benefits future generations.

But first, let’s recap why we should all recycle.

Why recycle? What are we wasting for™?

  • Recycling benefits the environment by diverting hundreds of millions of pounds of valuable materials from landfills and avoiding millions of metric tons of greenhouse emissions annually, creating healthier air and cleaner waterways. Recycling also reduces the need for sourcing new raw materials through mining and logging, which can create water pollution and emit greenhouse gases. It also saves energy used to produce new products from raw materials.
  • Recycling…

First, Design the System for Packaging Reuse

This guest blog is courtesy of the Reusable Packaging Association, and was originally posted on its website. The blog was written by Tim Debus,
President & CEO
.

With systems design for a circular economy, packaging can be recovered for reuse and designed for optimal performance and impact.

There is a simple question to verify whether you are enabling a circular economy for your packaging.  Are you designing a packaging product for use in a system that achieves full recovery after each use?   Answering “yes” builds a circular model; answering “no” leads to a linear model.  And if you are unsure, then there is an open opportunity – if…

The Many Benefits of Composting

U.S. PIRG and Frontier Group collaborate on a report detailing best practices for municipal compost programs.

According to a report delivered earlier this year, “Only 326 towns and cities out of more than 19,000 nationwide offer curbside food waste collection.” And even that small number represents an increase of 65 percent in the past five years! In my hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, I’m fortunate in that our local transfer station—Windham Solid Waste Management District—offers weekly curbside pickup of compost, “diverting approximately 104,000 pounds of compostable materials per month from landfills.”

compost mountain photo
A compost mountain, at Windham Solid Waste Management District, Vermont

Why compost, you might ask? The aforementioned report, authored by U.S. PIRG Education…

Page: