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A Word About Recycling with Ollie Maier

Sunday, December 30, 2018

Between the holidays, an item in the Recycling Today newsletter caught my eye, probably because I really hadn’t given that much thought to having a special container just for recycling paper cups. The article was titled, “Denver to recycle paper cups.”

The article explained in a news release on the city of Denver’s website, the city is able to recycle paper cups as a result of a partnership with the Foodservice Packaging Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, and Alpine Waste & Recycling, Denver.

And towards this effort, the city added a purple cart to all Denver households to enable residents to recycle paper coffee and soda cups.

Although I didn’t take time to check, I am wondering what is/are the color(s) of the other carts the city uses. In Minneapolis, where my wife Mary’s home is, they have three: Green for trash, yellow for recyclables and brown for yard waste. I think purple would be a nice addition.

The waste and recycling company servicing Denver already processes roughly 40,000 tons of recyclables each year. For these recycled paper cups, a company in Wisconsin will process the recycled paper cups Denver collects.

The reason for this arrangement is the Wisconsin company has a technology that can strip polycoated lining from cups so that the rest of the paper cup can be recycled. They agreed to partner with the Denver waste and recycling company in an arrangement that would allow all environmentally conscious coffee shop patrons to begin tossing their empty cups into recycling bins.

They believe, depending on consumer awareness, after the program starts, the recycling plant may receive nearly five tons of coffee cups per month – that’s a lot of coffee cups.

To assist in this awareness, the city also plans to send postcards to residents that will educate them on how to recycle paper cups correctly.

A spokesperson for the city commented, “We’re proud to have a role in which cups can now be recycled and turned into new cups or other products."

He added that the cups will be made into pulp before being shipped to the Wisconsin company.

Through this paper cup expansion of its recycling program, Denver hopes by 2020 to be one step closer to attaining its goal of increasing its recycling rate to 34 percent, the national average. Let’s hope they are successful and other cities follow their lead.

Till next week, do have an enjoyable and safe one. And we pray you had a good feeling after recycling all the Christmas boxes, paper, cans, bottles, etc. to start the new year off right.

--Ollie is a local citizen concerned with the environment and helping others. A retired Air Force fighter and instructor pilot, he is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and received his degrees at Texas State University where he worked on staff before totally retiring. For questions or comments, he invites you to call him at 512-353-7432 or e-mail omaier@txstate.edu.

San Marcos Record

(512) 392-2458
P.O. Box 1109, San Marcos, TX 78666