We live in a fast-paced world where people make complicated choices every day about their role as a consumer and their role as an environmentalist. Social and environmental responsibility is no longer just a “nice theory” being touted by serious fundamentalists – the “green revolution” ideas of yesteryear are gaining serious momentum in the 21^st century lifestyle. Think about it – paperless banking statements, reusable grocery bags, and resale shops are small examples of how consumers are making small steps towards lowering their environmental footprint, in addition to hybrid cars, energy efficient light bulbs, and compostable dishware. But there is a larger piece of the puzzle that is so important and comprehensive that it even gets it’s own holiday every year on November 9^th – recycling.

Consumers and professionals alike play an important role in residential recycling, from every end of the spectrum. In the recycling industry, we call this the “triple bottom line” – society, economy, and environment. RRS understands the importance of maintaining this bottom line – it has been in our blood since 1986 and today we continue to work with community officials to make sure their recycling efforts are maximized to support the triple bottom line on a local level. We know that recycling creates jobs, saves resources, and saves money, but what really matters is making it happen on a real, consistent level, and RRS believes in creating projects that deliver results now and in the future.

In December 2011, Lisa Jackson, head of EPA, was interviewed on the television show “Dr. Oz.” When asked what is her most important message to people, Ms. Jackson’s answer was simple: recycle. If the US went from a 35% national recycling rate to an 80% – 90% national rate, we could create millions of jobs and recycling would become its own supply chain. While we still have more than twice the number of landfills than material recovery facilities in the US, the US has nearly tripled the annual amount of materials recycled from 1960 to 2010. Recycling markets continue to grow for paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, and electronics, and residents in US cities are becoming more educated and more involved in residential recycling programs.

One very essential part of the recycling market in the last 2 years has been a cause very near-and-dear to our hearts at RRS – the carton – in an effort driven by the Carton Council. You may have heard of them. The Carton Council is a group of carton manufacturers working to bring carton recycling access to all American households. Since 2009, the number of US households with access to carton recycling has risen from 15% to 35%, with a 2012 goal of 40% nationwide. With a great team of support on their side, Carton Council has made great progress in their campaign towards keeping cartons out of landfills and getting them into the recycling bin, and we expect many big updates from them in the year to come.

This month, we will continue our coverage of trends and topics in this area, which will include visits to Austin, Texas; Franklin, Tennessee; and Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, for three recycling and sustainability conferences. We will also feature a select few cities that recently made headlines with the Carton Council going above and beyond to promote carton recycling in their communities.

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates and conversation.

The city of Flint is hoping for a second chance at the $1.1 million energy grant that was terminated by federal officials in October.

After the U.S. Department of Energy yanked the grant because of what it called “serious mismanagement and misuse,” Flint officials have submitted a revised proposal for spending the money on projects that promote energy efficiency.

Federal officials are expected to decide by Jan. 13 whether to reinstate the grant award, officials said.

Details of the proposal weren’t immediately available on Wednesday, but City Attorney Peter Bade said the city is partnering with Ann Arbor-based Resource Recycling Systems to develop the plan for using the grant funds.

Resource Recycling was the lowest bidder to respond to the city’s original request for proposals for spending the grant funds in 2009, when it first became available.

The city eventually decided not to go with the lowest bidder, which was one of the concerns cited by the energy department in its termination letter to the city.

Bade said Resource Recycling Systems is a “nationally recognized environmental consulting and engineering firm with direct experience administering federal grants,” including the energy department and other federal agencies.

In an e-mail to The Flint Journal, Bade said the proposal “addresses the Department of Energy’s concerns regarding the City’s ability and willingness to comply with the Grant requirements, and seeks to strongly demonstrate the City’s level of commitment.”

A representative from the energy department could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The grant was awarded as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be used for programs and projects that promote energy efficiency at City Hall and for city residents, such as financial incentives for energy improvements.

But in May, the grant came under federal investigation when the FBI and energy department auditors took electronic records and other grant-related documents and materials from city hall.

The grant was later suspended and then terminated, but the city’s legal department appealed the termination.

Tuesday is American Recycles Day, and every individual who recycles, or makes it their business to purchase recycled materials, is a hero. And here is a tale of recycling that highlights the collaborative efforts of many stakeholders in a basic industry who have made heroic strides to increase recycling efforts in the United States.

The saga starts with the carton.

Imagine the school lunch without its key essential — the simple little carton of milk that’s the most nutrition-dense food on the tray. Or a snack bag without its mainstay, the go-anywhere juice box that makes it effortless to have a healthy, sterile drink whenever want or need arises.

To paraphrase American comedian Rodney Dangerfield, the carton gets no respect. But it’s no loser. We don’t give them a second thought, yet this basic, economical, easy-to-use device vastly improves our quality of life. In truth, it’s indispensable, which explains why billions of them are manufactured yearly. And each one is meticulously engineered to keep good things in and bad things out.

Admittedly, there’s a downside: used cartons could create billions of tons of waste that can clog landfills.

And there’s a silver lining: cartons are eminently recyclable — and doing so not only reduces the volume of trash that goes to landfills, it reuses resources and gives communities an avenue of potential revenue from their sale to recycling facilities.

Yet a few years ago, most cities didn’t have programs in place that would allow them to recycle cartons. In 2008, just 18 percent of approximately 112 millions U.S. households had access to carton recycling programs. Major cities that weren’t carton-capable included Los Angles, Dallas and Charlotte.

Obviously, this created a really tough sustainability issue. How could we raise this number?

At MIT’s Sustainability Summit in 2010, MIT Sloan School of Management director Peter Senge pointed out that making real headway on hard issues requires “a massive undertaking in collaboration,” and “the parties that need to collaborate often aren’t naturally inclined to — such as competitors in the same industry.”

In the carton industry, we got there on our own. Tetra Pak, which had been dealing with recycling and sustainability issues since the early 1990s, joined forces with the nation’s three other largest carton manufacturers — Elopak, Evergreen Packaging and SIG/SIG Combibloc — and later the paperboard supplier Weyerhaeuser, in 2009. The Carton Council was born, and it had a clear mission: to change this sorry state of affairs, as quickly as possible.

The council established aggressive sustainability goals immediately, and today, just shy of three years later, over 41 million U.S. households have access to carton recycling programs — a current rate of 37 percent. And through the first 10 months of 2011, over seven million more households have been added to the carton recycling access list, representing a 21 percent increase in total access for this year alone. Now 2,115 communities in 40 states accept cartons in their curbside collection programs.

How the Council achieved these results, and an agenda to keep going until every community in our country has access to carton recycling, is a lesson for all industries as we celebrate America Recycles Day every November 15. Senge also said that we’ve “got to wake up and say ‘we’re all part of the system.’ You know who is causing the destruction of species? You and me. You know who’s causing the huge waste problems around the world? You and me.”

And ‘you and me’ calls for collaboration. Innovative collaboration. It’s the only way to solve big problems. And it’s also the kind of corporate social responsibly we all need to practice.

The Council’s initiative required simple steps — but they were thoughtfully planned, carefully orchestrated and they built on each other. Each member devoted significant amount of resources were devoted to the project, but the fiscal investment was secondary; the most important contributions were time, commitment and collaboration.

The basic reality was the Council’s starting point: Why did so many cities exclude cartons from their recycling programs?

Nationwide research studies the Council conducted showed that many communities’ sorting facilities lacked the ability to sort cartons, and paper mills to purchase them. So the very infrastructure of the waste management industry had to be changed from the ground up.

This required collaboration on a grand scale. The Council members teamed up to provide recycling faculties with funding for equipment upgrades, technical expertise for operational changes and marketing assistance to sell the cartons and pulp they would yield. And they worked together to give communities, haulers and school systems technical assistance, communications support and educational programs — complete with field teams to assist them directly and a free toolkit available online at RecycleCartons.com.

Two examples of key public partnerships our Council initiated and successfully developed just this year were with the cities of Dallas and Los Angeles, which both just began accepting cartons in their curbside recycling programs. In both cases, we worked with the City’s recycling processors to ensure cartons would be marketable once they were added to the process; provided technical and financial support for equipment upgrades; and helped the cities develop effective public information programs.

The Council’s successes have led to an ambitious goal to reach 50 percent of all communities in the U.S. with carton recycling programs by 2015. That accounts for 67.5 million households. And from research, we know that these efforts are making an impact that’s broader and deeper than originally expected. How so? Studies show that when you add more materials to municipal recycling programs, it increases the number of households that participate and the total amount of materials they recycle.

So Tuesday, on America Recycles Day, it’s critical to note that to make real inroads in any arena, social innovation goes hand-in-hand with technical expertise. As Senge says, we need to look for things we can do collaboratively with stakeholders who may not be our usual partners — and do them, one small step at a time.

Michael Zacka is North America President and CEO of Swiss multi-national Tetra Pak, the world’s largest food processing and packaging company.

Article Source – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-zacka/on-america-recycles-day-i_b_1092946.html

The webinar will cover basics of carton recycling as well as examine the success of the recent flip in Los Angeles, California. These webinars are free to everyone and are full of valuable information about expanding your recycling program.

We will be hosting three webinars during August! If you would like to sign up, please email Tina Colatruglio at tcolatruglio@recycle.com.  More information will be available soon.

Click here to read the full article in American Recycler.

The conference, taking place on February 16 and 17, was SWANA’s “Thinking Outside the Blue Box:  The Road to Zero Waste.”  The conference hosted six technical sessions covering a variety of topics helping communities start the journey to achieving zero waste.    

Part of our zero waste strategy includes adding cartons and aseptic packaging to recycling systems and programs.  During Jim’s visit in California, he met with several communities to help promote carton recycling and put strategizes into place for these communities and local processors to start accepting them as part of current recycling programs.  To learn more about carton recycling, please contact us. 

Visit our Event Calendar to see if we will be in your neighborhood next.

In late December, RRS began exciting work with the island as they develop a franchised waste and recycling program.  In an effort to design the highest quality residential waste and recycling services at the lowest cost, we are working with the island to develop a successful RFP procurement process.  The island is unique as it houses a large seasonal tourist influx population from April to September doubling to tripling the local population.  This influx of people also brings increased amounts of waste and recycling materials generated on the island.  We will be working through the spring on developing a procurement RFP with the hope that a franchised waste and recycling program will be instituted this September.  We look forward to delivering a cost effective program plan to Town Council this May for a final decision.

 We quickly realized that when CBS executives approach RRS about spotlighting our company for an upcoming episode, the show might not be so interesting to watch.  As in the case with Waste Management, senior management spent little to no time working with their front line employees keeping these executives a little out of touch with reality.  At RRS, our principals and senior management have “hat hair” from wearing hard hats at the material recovery facility (MRF), consistently showcase our steel toe boots as we inspect balers and conveyor belts, get slivers in our hands as we source wood waste for biomass facilities, and bring at least two pounds of dirt and mulch into the office after working at compost facilities.  We understand the challenges our in-the-field front line clients have as we work right alongside with them.  The majority of our staff has extensive operations oversight and management experience.  In that regard, we offer sensible, practical and completely effective programs, budgets and operation procedures that fit each of our client types. 

 So Larry, continue to follow the lead of Jim Frey, JD Lindeberg, Nicole Chardoul, Marty Seaman and David Stead, RRS’s upper management – roll up your sleeves, put on your boots and get your hands dirty.  As we know, this perspective is quite different than what is often spelled out on paper.

 As the “green” movement continues to expand into our 2010 culture and way of life, we know these ideas and thoughts are truly impacting our population when a “green” Super Bowl commercial is aired.  Audi’s “Green Police” ), ranked as the sixth most popular Super Bowl commercial this year, showed green police officers writing tickets and eco-violations to individuals using plastic bags, not recycling batteries, using the wrong light bulbs, not composting orange rinds and having hot tub water temperatures set too high.  As I laughed and voted this the best Super Bowl commercial of the year, I couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t take Resource Recycling Systems  $3.1 million to create a commercial showing how we help individuals and communities avoid these green police tickets and violations in a commerical. 

As I thought more, our commercial would involve our group of program designers, economists, educators and engineers (all donned in capes with 3 chasing arrows) flying in to save the day.  In our recycled cloth bags, we would pull out our laptops, calculators, spreadsheets, clipboards and expertise ready to calculate the best strategy/avenue for each community to take.  In the end, our commercial would pane across a well designed household hazardous waste collection system accepting batteries for recycling, a carbon management plan detailing cost and energy savings for CFL and LED lighting, and a state-of-the-art compost facility where all food, yard and biosolid wastes could be composted (including orange rinds).  As we finish a job well done, a program report highlighting a detailed program budget, cost savings and overall environmental impact/benefit statement would be sent to the green police just as they start to write a ticket.  The police officer would look up from his handheld unit, smile and give you a thumbs up as he moves on to the next infraction.  The final frame of the commercial states “Resource Recycling Systems – Building Sustainable Systems for a Waste-Free Future”.    

 Now, that our commercial is designed for the 2011 Super Bowl, let the fundraising begin!