Recycling is up to Everyone

More and more companies are beginning to get on the wagon for recycling.

A San Francisco based company, Method, makers of eco-friendly cleaning and household products, packages its products in 100% post-consumer recycled plastic. They are also attempting to make all products biodegradable.

Herman Miller, Inc, provider of office furniture, has reduced its cardboard and plastic packaging by more than 50% by shipping many of its products in bulk, securely enclosed in reusable blankets.

ConAgra Foodservice is packaging its Wesson Oil to restaurants in a Bag-in-Box container that has replaced its Jug-in-Box container. The 35-pound package uses a more environmentally friendly plastic bag instead of the thicker plastic bottle.

These are just a few examples of how companies are taking recycling more seriously.

Now for the end users. The neighborhood I live in has given every household a blue recycle bin and a list of acceptable recycled products. This is a good effort on the part of the city but some of my neighbors are not participating. I have noticed, while driving through the neighborhood on trash day, cardboard boxes sticking out of the brown garbage bins waiting to be picked up at the curbside while the blue recycle bin still sits next to the house at the top of the driveway, apparently, empty.

Come on people, how much effort does it take to toss a cardboard box into the blue container instead of the brown container? And how much effort does it take to break that box down so you can get more recycled products in that blue container? These are simple actions.

What bothers me is why my city doesn’t enforce recycling. I am sure the trash truck drivers see this nonsense everyday. Why don’t they say something? Evidently, recycling is not truly considered to be a worthwhile effort with enough people.

Companies are doing their part. Sure the cynics say that the new packaging means less cost for the companies and this is the only reason they are doing it, but seriously, it also means less waste in the landfills and fewer raw materials being used. Now come on fellow consumers, let’s do our part and place our recyclables into the recycling bin instead of the trash bin.