A Word About Recycling
With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, the Holidays all coming up, will try to keep this short as know you have a lot of things to do. Incidentally, didn’t realize that reason they call the day after Thanksgiving ‘Black Friday’ was with all the shoppers taking advantage of the special sales on that day, many businesses see their profit-loss statement go in the black for the year.
Many of us use paper bags. A recent Resource Recycling newsletter article on them started with the statement, “As recyclers, we know better than anyone the numerous benefits of recyclable paper bags. The facts demonstrate the success of a free and fair marketplace for highly recyclable paper bags, a resource that is sought after for its fiber strength and is used in the manufacture of many products, such as corrugated boxes, cereal boxes, wallboard and new paper bags.”
It continued, “These are products that we use every day, proving that recycled paper bags are essential to manufacturing and help preserve earth’s valuable yet finite resource of trees while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” (Personal note: Besides, I like them better for groceries as they don’t slide around in the vehicle like plastic bags do when transporting the items home.)
Yet, many places are either banning their use or placing a fee on each paper bag. This means fewer of them are being used or available to customers. Thus the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) recently published their new policy concerning paper bags.
Basically, ISRI “… opposes bans and fees on paper that is manufactured into essential commodity-grade materials. It also promotes proper recycling and economic opportunities associated with collection, processing and reuse of recyclable paper bags while also supporting a free and fair market-based system for the efficient delivery of these essential materials to manufacturers.”
From the article, we find recyclable paper bags are a significant portion of the 68% of paper recycled in the United States. This being the case, ISRI encourages the public to realize how important recyclable paper bags are for our economy and environment. (Part of the reason for mentioning it here.) Switching subjects, another item from the same newsletter on something we don’t like to read. It seems, due to the impacts from the COVID-19, a program called Simple Recycling is ending. This program, which had operations in more than 30 cities and towns across Texas, provided residential curbside collection and recycling of both textiles and small household goods.
At no cost, the Simple Recycling program kept more than 60 tons of material every year out of the landfill. To the users of other programs now picking up the slack, they suggested, “Unusable textiles, such as rags or torn or stained clothing, should be placed in the trash or repurposed, never placed in the recycle cart.” (Good advice… with that we’ll close.)
Since I will be heading up to MN for Thanksgiving and the Holidays, and may not have access to a computer to research and develop these articles, I want to take a moment to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, many great buys on Black Friday, and a very Enjoyable, Healthy, Safe, and Holy Christmas plus a great New Year. (And may the luckiest football teams win, even if not necessarily the best.) See you when I get back.
