Category: Recycling

Ideas To Get You Ready For Thanksgiving

11/15/2023

Great ideas from RecycleSmart MA
With the holiday season fast approaching, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the topic on all of our minds…. food.

Despite our love of Thanksgiving leftovers – it turns out we aren’t that good at gobbling up all of our food, especially at the holidays. Each year we throw out over 200 million pounds of turkey alone during the week of Thanksgiving[1]. Over the course of a year, up to 40% of the food in the U.S. goes uneaten[2] – food that could have benefited the one in 11 Massachusetts residents that is considered food insecure[3].

The good news is that there are simple things we can all do to decrease wasted food (and save money). Here are 5 tip to reduce our “foodprint” during the holidays:

Use the Guest-imator. If you are hosting during the holidays, the Guest-imator is the perfect tool to help you plan out how much food to buy. Don’t worry- it accounts for those leftover meals too.
Get storage savvy. Soggy celery? Sprouting onions? Save The Food’s interactive storage guide has tips and tricks for how to store your food so it lasts as long as possible (and what to do with that spinach that has seen better days).
Compleat it. We often overlook the odds and ends when cooking – from potato peels to the end slices on a loaf of bread. Love Food Hate Waste is full of recipes and tips to help you make the most of your food – from root to shoot. Those carrot tops? They would make an excellent (and nutritious) pesto.
The freezer is your friend. Can’t stand the thought of eating another turkey sandwich? Freeze it! Almost any leftovers can be frozen and you will thank yourself later when you don’t feel like cooking.
Compost it. Despite our best efforts to meal plan and use up the foods that are past their prime – we will inevitably end up with some food that we just can’t salvage. Composting is an easy and inexpensive way to keep food waste out of our landfills and incinerators. Don’t have access to curbside compost pickup in your community? Learn how to compost at home.

Remember that food and liquids do NOT belong in the recycling bin.
Wasted Food Facts that will Floor You!

Households are responsible for the largest portion of all food waste. The average person (in the U.S.) throws away 238 pounds or about $450 of food each year – ReFED
Reducing food waste by just 15% could feed more than 25 million Americans every year – Natural Resources Defense Council
Food materials make up more than 25% of what we throw away in Massachusetts – Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
Massachusetts banned the disposal of food and other organic wastes from businesses and institutions that dispose of more than one ton of these materials per week. Since the ban went into effect in 2014, overall food donation in the state has increased 22% and the (amount of food) that is composted or anaerobically digested has increased 70% – Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
Food waste is responsible for 8% of annual greenhouse gas emissions – World Resources Institute

Image below sourced by: Natural Resources Defense Council

[1] Cabrera, Yvette. “Giving Thanks and Wasting Less,” Natural Resources Defense Council, Nov. 2019, https://www.nrdc.org/experts/yvette-cabrera/giving-thanks-and-wasting-less
[2] Gunders, Dana. “Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm too Fork to Landfill,” Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC Issue Paper, Aug. 2012 IP:12-06-B
[3]New Data Shows Cost of Food in Massachusetts Highest in United States, The Greater Boston Food Bank, May. 2019, https://www.gbfb.org/news/press-releases/cost-food-massachusetts/

Wellesley Scouts Want You To Share This

10/18/2023

For their Silver Award, Wellesley Girl Scouts Elise McDonough, Hadley Grover, and Vivi Dublin worked with Wellesley's Recycling and Disposal Facility (RDF) to create this information pamphlet to pass out to new families moving into town, informing them of all that the RDF offers.

"We wanted to create awareness of the benefits of recycling in our town," the Scouts said. "The RDF takes our recycled items and sells them, making money that they give back to our community. Wellesley also has a Reusables Area, known as the 'Give and Take' area. Here you can drop off items in good condition, and then other residents can then take them, for free. All of these efforts reduces landfill," the Scouts said.

Kudos to these students for making this 'Creating Simple Steps for a Greener Life' pamphlet that realtors can hand out to new homeowners. They are obviously proud to show off the benefits of recycling and using our town’s RDF.

Although the pamphlet is targeted to new and existing residents, they also want folks to know that any Wellesley business with surplus cardboard and plastic, should bring it to the RDF as well as it is very valuable to Wellesley.

Please share this and use it, so that we can keep things out of landfill.

Thank you to Elise, Hadley Grover, and Vivi.

Tell Your Legislator that Companies Should Have a Stake in Recycling Their Products - TODAY!

6/22/2021

FROM GREEN NEWTON:
A hearing on three bills regarding manufacturer funded recycling programs will take place in the Massachusetts State Legislature from 1-5pm on June 22. Passing these bills on extended producer responsibility (EPR) for paint, mattresses, packaging, and paper would help defray the cost of disposing of or recycling these items that cities and towns in Massachusetts currently bear. It would also set a precedent in Massachusetts for a better way to manage the items that are thrown away each year. The three bills are:

Paint EPR H.938 – this bill is the most likely to get passed this session, it has support from the paint industry and 10 successful programs nationwide, including neighboring states of CT, RI, VT, and ME.
Mattress EPR S.569 – this bill would ensure that mattresses are recycled in Massachusetts.
Packaging & Paper Products EPR H.878/S.517/S.610 – this bill would reimburse municipalities for their recycling programs.

We need you to:

submit written testimony by midnight on June 22. You can use this template to support all three bills or you can simply write, “I’m in favor of each of the bills because they are beneficial to the environment.” Send by 11:59pm on Tuesday, June 22 to JointCommittee.Environment@malegislature.gov.
contact your legislator and tell them you strongly support the three EPR bills because cities and towns should not have to bear all the cost of recycling products. You can find your state legislator here.

What is Extended Producer Responsibility?
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation makes manufacturers have a stake in recycling the products and packaging they generate. An EPR bill would create a fund to cover the cost of recycling and incentivize companies to make their packaging more recyclable.

Why is EPR needed?
Municipalities have little power to control the barrage of materials flooding the Commonwealth but are responsible for managing recycling and disposal.

Recent fluctuations in the recycling market have drastically increased costs for municipalities, which now pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
A growing percentage of packaging waste is plastic – 40 percent of all plastic production is used for packaging. However, just 10 percent of all plastic produced is recycled. The rest is burned, buried in landfills, or lost in the environment, contributing to air and water pollution, the formation of microplastics, and a growing litter crisis in our oceans.
Companies that sell packaged products do not have an incentive to design packaging so that it can be recycled, or to use recycled content in their manufacture. While producers benefit from wrapping their products in disposable materials, local taxpayers are responsible for cleaning up litter and paying for trash and recycling, regardless of whether they purchased the products.

I’ve never heard of EPR–is this a new idea?
Extended Producer Responsibility has been tested and proven in countries all over the world.

Successful product stewardship programs have transformed waste management in the EU, Canada, Israel, Brazil, Chile, India and Russia.
California, Connecticut, and Rhode Island already have EPR legislation for the recycling of mattresses. 10 states nationwide have laws on recycling paint. Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York are joining together to call for the positive transformation that an EPR program would bring to not just Massachusetts, but the entire Northeast region.

Ideas To Get You Ready For Thanksgiving

Wellesley Scouts Want You To Share This

Tell Your Legislator that Companies Should Have a Stake in Recycling Their Products - TODAY!

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