NERC Blog

Today's guest blog is authored by NERC board member Chaz Miller. The original posting can be found here.

Container deposits are the third rail of recycling. You can love them or hate them, but few of us are indifferent. Whether you like them or not, it is hard to deny that they are an immensely effective way to collect bottles and cans for recycling.

Ten states currently require deposits on beverage containers. Most of them charge a nickel, but two require 10 cents. These ten states supply the bulk of our recycled aluminum cans, glass bottles and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles.

Deposit laws work for one simple reason: Consumers have a direct economic interest in recycling. Deposits are not hidden in the price of a product. They are out in the open for all to see. Consumers…

Today's guest blog reprinted courtesy of Resource Recycling, was authored by Pierre Benabidès, Sara-Emmanuelle Dubois and Peter Hargreave. The original post can be found here.

There is growing consensus that we have a major waste problem that needs to be solved. Declines in commodity markets and Asian market demands have significantly impacted the viability of many commercial and municipal recycling systems. The persistence of waste, especially plastic waste, is overwhelming citizens – whether it be directly through experiences in their own communities or international headlines about the impact waste is having on the natural environment. Public and industry polling is showing an increasing demand for change, and governments at all levels are responding.

There…

Today's guest blog is authored by Jenny Ahlen, Director of EDF+Business. The original post can be found here.

When shopping online, consumers can filter searches based on product price, color or even “best sellers.” But that same ability to sort products doesn’t exist when it comes to environmental and ingredient data. This lack of information serves as a barrier for shoppers to make more informed decisions that impact their health and the planet. Companies have to change that.

Today, Amazon announced that customers in the U.S. can now shop more than 25,000 products that are certified “Climate Pledge Friendly” across grocery, household, fashion, beauty, and personal electronics. This move holds tremendous potential for helping shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions. These products have a range of 18 different third-party environmental certifications, in addition to an Amazon original “Compact…

When the default practice of exporting US recyclables, primarily to China, finally fell through (largely due to contamination), the shortcomings in the domestic recycling infrastructure were laid bare. To retain its all-important relevance, every step of the recycling process—from curbside pickup to the manufacturing of new products using recycled materials—would have to greatly improve. Otherwise, the consequences of landfilling instead will have dire consequences, for the environment, public health, and the economy.

Few recycling organizations have been as diligent about improving the recycling experience on a local basis as NERC Advisory Member The Recycling Partnership. The organization’s focus on local programs “has served more than 1,400 communities and counting with best-in-class tools, data, resources and technical support helped place more than 700,000 recycling carts, reached 74 million American households, and helped companies and communities invest more than $57 million in recycling infrastructure,”…

Today's guest blog is authored by Maddie Stone and originally appeared on the Grist website.

Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives — and right now, most of the world doesn’t have a plan for dealing with that.

But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the

Today's guest blog is authored by Meg Wilcox, contributor to GreenBiz.com. The original post can be found here.

Reusable packaging is gaining steam, and brands have ample opportunity to pilot projects or join precompetitive collaborations so that they don’t have to shoulder the risks alone. That optimistic message — even amid safety concerns that have arisen during the coronavirus pandemic — was the takeaway from two breakout sessions on reusable packaging at Circularity 20, GreenBiz’s online circularity event.

"We’re seeing the field of reuse just exploding," said Annette Lendal, project manager for New Plastics Economy at Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The foundation has seen a surge of interest, she said, since publishing its July 2019 report, "Reuse — Rethinking Packaging," which analyzed and mapped 69 reuse examples to help companies understand reuse models, their benefits and potential challenges.

"Everything has changed on this topic in the last three years," agreed Bridget Croke,…

Today's guest blog comes to us from It's All You, a program of The Recycling Partnership. The original post can be found here.

Why should I recycle? It’s a question that we’ve all asked ourselves. The Recycling Partnership wants you to know that the answer is easy. According to the Partnership’s Chief Community Strategy Officer Cody Marshall, “Every time we recycle, we reduce pollution and conserve resources. But recycling does more than that. Recyclables have potential. When you recycle something, you’re actually putting material back into the supply chain.” It’s simple, easy, and something that we can all do from the comfort of our homes and offices.

Today's guest blog comes to us from It's All You, a program of The Recycling Partnership. The original post can be found here.

Whether it’s shopping for back to school supplies or moving into a college dorm room, explore ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle more where you live, work, play, and learn.

Today's guest blog is authored by Alec Cooley of Busch Systems. The original posting can be found here.

I got my start in the recycling field as a student volunteer in the early 90’s. Every week we set up a tabling display on my university’s quad that talked about the environmental benefits of recycling.

That message seemed obvious. It resonated with me personally as well as the other environmentally conscious students we spoke to. What we only slowly learned, and what most recycling educators now know is that this environmentally-focused message has little impact on the 80% or more of people who aren’t predisposed to respond to environmental issues. Our tabling efforts were a classic example of preaching to the choir.

Recycling is easy…right?

As much as we may have wanted people to care about recycling and the environment, the truth is that recycling educators have only one very specific job: get people to place recyclable items in the recycling bin. Simple enough,…