Spotlight on Nationwide Recycling Day...

In the wake of a history making election, financial crisis and war, recycling hardly seems like a topic worthy of attention. But November 15th is America Recycles Day and the time is ripe for a little engine that could called Recycling.

Many Americans have been recycling for decades now. Curbside recycling programs offer most Michiganders unprecedented opportunities to recycle an ever growing number of items right outside their front door. Participation in these programs, however, lags behind our follow Midwesterners and many in this state simply don’t have convenient access to any recycling program.

In spite of some big industry leaders, many Michigan businesses are just waking up to the value recycling provides to their work. Reducing disposal cost is just one of the many benefits. Finding alternative uses for industrial waste products can lead to the development of new processes and products. Employee morale and customer satisfaction are enhanced when companies make the commitment to manage their waste responsibly. And yet many more companies in Michigan have yet to take a second look at their waste.

America Recycles Day and the Michigan Recycling Coalition (MRC) are out to change that. Recycling has great potential but we all have to take the pledge to make it happen. In a recent study called, Stop Trashing the Climate, by the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance and Eco-Cycle, "Reducing waste through prevention, reuse, recycling and composting is one of the fastest, cheapest and most effective strategies to protect the climate. …By decreasing the amount of waste disposed in landfills and incinerators we will diminish greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of closing 21% of U.S. coal-fired power plants."1

Recycling also has great potential as a community economic development tool. According to the Institute of Local Self-Reliance has documented 30 years of growth in the recycling sector. Locally-based reuse and recycling activities create significantly more value and jobs for communities than landfilling or incinerating those resources in communities.

Take the time on America Recycles Day to make the pledge to recycle. Visit the America Recycles Day website to take the pledge at http://www.nrc-recycle.org/americarecycles.aspx.  More importantly make the commitment to recycle.Contact your local recycling coordinator for information about recycling in your area or the Michigan Recycling Coalition directly at (517) 974-3672 or www.michiganrecycles.org.