RecycleMania 2012: Turning Commitment to Sustainability Into Competition to Recycle
A recycling competition between hundreds of North American colleges helps to stem landfill waste
In 2010, Americans generated around 250 million tons of waste. Over 85 million tons of it was recycled and composted—about a 34 percent recycling rate. On average, each individual American generates 4.5 pounds of trash per day and recycles or composts 1.5 pounds of it.[1] Not bad, but it should be better.
Many Americans have no idea where their trash ends up. Many communities ship their garbage to landfills in other states. But rising fuel costs and increasing development is threatening that solution.
"The public doesn't see this as a crisis yet, but it really could be," said Jim Bunchuck, a former president of the Long Island Sanitation Officials Association and the current solid waste coordinator of the Town of Southold, Long Island, a region of metropolitan New York City that sends around 1.1 million tons—30 percent of its total waste—to out-of-state waste facilities and landfills.[2]
"We need more companies engaged in the conversion of recyclables too, instead of shipping them out," said Bunchuck.
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Reynard is a Justmeans staff writer for Sustainable Finance and Corporate Social Responsibility. A former media executive with 15 years experience in the private and non-profit sectors, Reynard is the co-founder of MomenTech, a New York-based experimental production studio that explores transnational progressivism, neo-nomadism, post-humanism and futurism. He is also author of the blog 13.7 Billion Years, covering cosmology, biodiversity, animal welfare, conservation and ethical consumption. He is currently developing the Underground Desert Living Unit (UDLU), a sustainable single-family dwelling envisioned as a potential adaptation response to the future loss of human habitat due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Reynard is also a contributing author of "Biomes and Ecosystems," a comprehensive reference encyclopedia of the Earth's key biological and geographic classifications, to be published by Salem Press in 2013.
