Blogs

For more information on how to build an exceptional recycling program for your elementary or secondary school, click here. We’ve been building outstanding public- and private-school waste-management programs for over 35 years. Here are nine key tips that will help you launch the zero-waste program you’ve always wanted — and save money while you’re at it! Elementary and secondary schools generate a huge amount of waste—much of which is easily recyclable if you implement the right program. With an effective recycling initiative, you can drastically…

Buried in my files is a photograph of several college friends proudly unveiling a new recycling station outside the campus library. The year is roughly 1989 and the campus is Humboldt State University in Northern California, where I first cut my teeth as a student recycling volunteer. The bin station was one of a dozen or so we built using plywood to encase 55-gallon drums. Each of the 4-foot tall stations was painted with a unique mural that reflected an environmental theme as well as…

Don’t miss part 1 of this blog series! I recall having a conversation with Jay Price, at the time the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s recycling manager, and who now oversees all sustainability initiatives. It was following a session about mini-bin deskside programs at the 2015 AASHE conference in Minneapolis, and Jay was actively focused on how to bring such a program to his campus. Flash forward to July 2020, the 30,000 FTE university has converted nearly 90% of campus to the My Tiny Trash system,…

Getting youth excited about recycling is something we are always glad to have the opportunity to be a part of. Just in time for Earth Day 2015, we picked two deserving high schools, Nantyr Shores and Nottawasaga Pines, whose faculty, students and maintenance staff have been working with the Simcoe Country District School Board to kick-start a composting program in their schools. Properly disposing of organic waste like food scraps has been garnering more attention of late as landfills vying for space and food waste…

Community School is a pre-K through 12th grade independent school nestled in the mountains of Sun Valley, Idaho. A year ago the school set a goal of achieving zero waste and started searching for solutions to make recycling and composting as easy or easier than throwing waste into the landfill. Our trash analysis showed that approximately 85% of our waste could be recycled or composted. Our challenge was getting our students to make the effort to sort their garbage. We knew education was part of…