Landfills are reaching capacity and waste is overwhelming cities and towns across the US. With estimates between 250-400 million tons of garbage being produced by Americans every year, recycling efforts are more important than ever. Just as it becomes ever more essential for recycling efforts to step up and encourage more aggressive recycling strategies, cities are faced with ever-more-daunting challenges.
What are the Challenges That Cities Face in Relation to Recycling?
Cities and local governments face a wide range of challenges and barriers to successful recycling implementation. Most of the issues have related to resources, with a combination of:
Absence of a budget that’s adequate to support recycling efforts
Mismanaged, inadequate, or inexperienced recycling staff
Poor quality and non-existent recycling processes for consumers
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. With the challenges, cities and communities are fighting to not only maintain but increase the levels of support for recycling efforts. Those challenges are affecting efforts for consumers as well as business-based recycling.
How are Cities Fighting to Save Recycling?
Faced with the realities of overwhelming budgetary considerations, cities have curtailed recycling programs. For many communities, it appeared to be the only option. We could call if a local and even a national tragedy, but that’s not the end of the story. American citizens are stepping up in unprecedented numbers to keep recycling programs on track. Here are just a few of the creative solutions that citizens have implemented
Local Americans are biking around town to pick up recycling.
They’ve set up drop-off collection repositories to replace curbside collection.
Communities have also implemented recycling events for glass and other recyclables.
We’ve lost ground in the overall scope and range of recycling efforts in general. It feels a bit like we’re trying to get back some level of the progress that we’ve accomplished after all these years. The situation is not hopeless though. Far from it.
What Hope is This?
It really is exciting and inspiring to see that a community of impassioned and dedicated Americans can step up and push to create recycling solutions, even in the face of budget cuts and economic diversity. These efforts are only successful when we tap into a grassroots, community-based recycling movement, particular those that facilitated by and supported by local businesses.
It’s easy, perhaps even simplistic, when the city does all the work for you, when they pick up the recycling, and make sure that it all gets processed properly. It’s a whole other level of dedication when the recycling programs suddenly appear to be in shambles, with no resources, staff, or dedicated educational initiatives. When we’re faced with the loss of such an important and environmentally impactful program, it’s inspiring to see how we can all band together to turn the tide. It points to an ever-growing feeling of personal and social responsibility.
How Trashcans Warehouse Can Help
We, at Trash Cans Warehouse, offer the products and services to support your corporate recycling efforts, even in the face of severe cut-backs at the local level. We offer bulk discounts and consulting services that will help you roll out the recycling solutions that will work best for your organization. Our goal is to help you implement solutions that not only fit into your corporate culture and sustainability objectives, but that are also cost-effective and streamlined for you.