I recently attended and spoke at the Sustainable Packaging Symposium in Houston, Texas. One of the major themes of the meeting was the topic of food waste, which makes up a hefty 14% by weight of the US municipal solid waste stream (2009 EPA estimate). Food waste is an issue where food manufacturers, grocery retailers, and restaurants, in particular, feel especially responsible and engaged. The … More
I was connecting through the Atlanta airport last week and noticed the Recycle Runway special exhibit as I moved between terminals. Atlanta is the country’s busiest airport, with over 43 million passenger boardings in 2010, so I imagine a lot of you have seen the exhibit as well. Recycle Runway is the work of artist and environmental educator Nancy Judd. It features clothing—dresses, coats, shoes, and … More
Lately I have been feeling like a character in one of the children’s novels I have loved and reread numerous times over the years. Maybe it’s Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, or perhaps Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? The central plot of these books features an average person transported to a fantasy world for a series of adventures each more fantastic, silly, puzzling, absurd, … More
Have you seen a sign like this near your home or favorite campsite? Maybe you are familiar with exotic-sounding creatures with names like “Asian longhorned beetle” or “emerald ash borer?” If you aren’t already, you should be. It turns out that over half of all US states already have restrictions on firewood movement, and another six advocate leaving firewood at home. But why? The reason … More
What inspires me? Today, it’s the Liter of Light program, run by the MyShelter Foundation in the Philippines. Liter of Light provides a method for residents of Manila’s poorest neighborhoods to install free lighting in their homes. The technique uses one liter clear PET bottles filled with water and inserted as skylights into the roof of a home. The water refracts the sunlight, with each … More
Tomorrow, October 20, GreenBlue will release its Labeling for Recovery report, which discusses the shortcomings of the US recycling and recovery system that may be addressed by an effective labeling scheme. We also will announce the 2012 national pilot for our new Packaging Recovery Label System, a voluntary label developed by GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition to communicate to consumers how to recycle a package after its use. Stay … More
One of the most interesting things I learned while recently attending the Environmental Research and Education Foundation’s Regional Summit on Sustainable Solid Waste Practices and Research was how citizen science is taking a big leap forward thanks to the creation of the Marine Debris Tracker. The Marine Debris Tracker was developed by scientists at the University of Georgia, in cooperation with the Southeast Atlantic Marine … More
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries just released the results of a study it commissioned to assess the employment and economic impacts of the scrap recycling industry in the United States. This includes not just the packaging collected curbside, but also electronics, tires, textiles, and metals. The figures reported are eye-popping: more than 450,000 jobs and a $10.3 billion contribution in tax revenue to local, state, and … More
Since I joined GreenBlue, my mission has been to try to understand what happens to packaging when we, as consumers, are done using it. Does it get recycled? Composted? Sent to a landfill? And why? Several years later, my findings can be boiled down to the fact that the fate of packaging at end-of-life is a really complicated topic. And that if my job is … More