6 Things You Should Know Before Starting a Recycling Education Program

by CleanRobotics | Jul 7, 2022 | Recycling Education

Despite current efforts to get the public educated on recycling, not much is implemented in real life. According to EPA, 292.4 million tons of solid waste were produced in 2018 in the USA, meaning that each person produced 4.9 pounds of municipal solid waste every day. Contributing to a better world through sustainability programs should be a priority in any public space. Nevertheless, the recycling and composting aspects are often ignored, especially in large facilities. Public spaces have a greater since airports, hospitals, and stadiums often have the biggest challenge getting their visitors to recycle correctly.

The ultimate Zero Waste goal is to reduce everyday waste through recycling and waste diversion efforts. Moreover, composting techniques can also help in decarbonization. Therefore, facility leaders should start introducing a Zero Waste vision by introducing recycling education programs. 

Recycling programs will help the earth in breathing in a better way. According to RTS, recycling one single aluminum tin can supply power to television for 3 hours. Nevertheless, public facility users are not aware of recycling dos and dont’s; an accessible recycling education to all and convenience to the public can help minimize waste landfills and ensure recycling ROI. This article is the first step to getting you well-versed in recycling and developing an effective recycling education program.

1. Why is recycling education so important?

Recycling education is important for any public space and workplace as it would help the reducing a company’s environmental impact and make this world a better place for the next generations. 

Typically, people have a general idea about recycling, but despite their best intentions, recycling rules can be confusing, especially in public spaces where people are in a hurry and discard their waste without a second thought. Nonetheless, recycling education directly helps decarbonize and control climate change by reducing waste and applying waste diversion strategies. 

2. The cost of waste: Why to invest in recycling education

Nobody can neglect the importance of recycling education, but people usually have limited knowledge about recycling and they end up strangled in the wish cycle. Therefore, recycling education should be spread accurately in your facility. Companies can benefit from investing in recycling education, such as being perceived as an environmental innovator, reducing the cost of waste management, developing a better perception from customers, getting a return on investment in recycling, and a sustainable green environment.

3. The 5 principles of recycling in the workplace

Recycling education is incomplete without 5 principles: reduce, reuse, repair, rot and recycle. Recycling education is not only about recycling the waste but also about not creating or minimizing the waste through different techniques. 

Reduce: Don’t create waste unless necessary, for example, switching to a smart recycling bin with fullness indication so your custodial team uses just the necessary trash bags.

Reuse: Reusable items should be used before disposing of or recycling them. Get your maintenance team to improve the lifetime of your facility’s equipment and assets.

Repair: Repair items instead of disposing of them or buying new ones. This way, expenses will be decreased, and no more waste will be generated.

Rot: Your facility’s top waste items can be switched for compostable and eco-friendly alternatives. Public spaces will be greener, and landfill waste can be drastically reduced through this initiative. 

Recycle: The key to separating recyclables from landfill waste is an effective waste diversion. Usually, less than 35% of the waste ends up being recycled, but with new recycling technologies such as TrashBot, on-site sorting can be 300% more accurate than just relying on your public’s judgment.

These recycling principles require leaders to launch recycling education programs for people who want to understand the true meaning of recycling education. Recycling education programs will modify the living styles of the attendants, and they will be aware of how to practice recycling even in public spaces.

4. The impact of a Recycling Education Program

Did you know coffee cups are not recyclable? Most people don’t, and in one year Americans use 50 billion coffee cups per year. Educational programs play a huge part in effective recycling as recycling rules are complex and vary based on location, which results in user confusion when throwing items away. In facilities with transient populations, this leads to large-scale contamination, low recycling yields, and poor diversion. 

The goal of a Recycling Education Program is to get the user involved in recycling while eliminating the thinking of wish-cycling. Moreover, the user understands how a simple aluminum can help improve the whole ecosystem. 

5. Recycling education program’s importance

Yes, recycling education programs may require a significant investment, but the impact these programs cause on attendants is ever-lasting. The Return on Investment (ROI) on recycling education programs can help companies change their recycling behavior. Meaning that companies can benefit from a variety of sources such as buying recycled products reducing the cost, selling used or refurbished products profits the companies, and more importantly, recycling businesses would flourish and can help in meeting recycling commitments. 

Moreover, recycling education programs help reduce the cost of disposing of waste and lower the contamination rates by gaining knowledge about recyclables and compostables. Through new recycling technologies such as Trashbot, companies are able to get on-demand waste audits, fullness indication alerts, and waste diversion analytics.

6. Do it for the Earth

The unawareness of recycling education has caused many devastating impacts on the climate change. Today, most recycling bins’ contents end up in landfills since people are still uncertain when depositing an item in a recycling bin. Recycling education programs should be developed, implemented, and evaluated to generate a substantial environmental impact.

How to Build a Sustainability Team from the Ground Up

by CleanRobotics | Apr 6, 2022 | Recycling Education

Ever-increasing garbage and landfills are a grave problem for the global community. According to UNEP 11.2 billion tonnes of solid waste is collected worldwide and decay of the organic proportion of solid waste. So the ultimate solution to this problem is recycling which is the key to a sustainable, better, and green environment for present and upcoming generations. 

Businesses worldwide are concerned about the growing pollution and are looking for viable solutions. Many international facilities like the San Diego International Airport and The Cura Co. are implementing Zero Waste initiatives. Therefore, recycling education must be delivered to all individuals from the executive level to front-line workers in all organizations, especially in hospitals, airports, and large facilities. 

The decentralization of the sustainability team would make the organization an excellent recycling hub. We have divided this article into two sections: forming the sustainability team enriched with recycling education and tricks for an enforceable recycling plan. This article can be used by any hospital, airport, or large facility shifting towards zero-waste goals.

Formation of the Sustainability Team enriched with Recycling Education

All the roles and responsibilities of the sustainability team should be crystal clear. The sustainability team should be aware of recycling education. They should be ready to adopt a recycling attitude because these two factors will enable them to be a highly-functioning sustainability team.

Upper Management Committee

The sustainability team should reflect on recycling habits from top to bottom. However, the upper and senior-level management should be ready to spread awareness about and comply with recycling education. The upper management committee is responsible for decision-making for finances. This committee is also known as the sustainability leadership council (SLC).

Green Team/ Ecology Committee

The green team is the collection of sub-committees of the directors of different departments who want to adopt recycling solutions for their organizations. Each sub-committee is preliminarily assigned a particular task such as purchasing, saving energy, water, etc. The green team is also known as the recycling task force because this committee is also responsible for accomplishing day-to-day recycling tasks. Recycling solutions for hospitals, airports, and other large facilities are also provided by the green teams of the respective organizations.

Recycling Team Manager

The core connecting and managing person of an organization’s ecology committee is the recycling team manager. The recycling team manager is the main person of the sustainability team with in-depth recycling education. They have many duties and responsibilities to perform, like communication between the sub-committees, reporting to the upper management committee, and overseeing the activities of the recycling plant.

Sustainable departmental coordinators 

The coordinators are responsible for communication within the department and have the limited privilege to carry out specific responsibilities. The sustainable departmental coordinators ensure that all of the must-dos are appropriately done within the department, and no individual’s working is against the recycling education and plan.

Value Analysis Committee (VACs)

Value Analysis Committees are the most critical groups for recycling solutions for airports, hospitals, and large facilities. This committee is mainly present in organizations with supply chains and creates a plan for solving various performance-related problems such as advanced technology, cost, operation, etc. The value analysis committee points out the products and services which can help the organization to become environmentally friendly. Moreover, the value analysis committee seeks eco-friendly solutions and adopts sustainable principles while purchasing within the organization.

Tips for an Enforceable Recycling Plan

A recycling plan has to be executable and enforceable within the organizations. A perfectly workable plan should be catered to carefully as per the recycling education and principles. We have listed down tricks presented by the recycling experts to get started.

Begin with tiny steps

The first and foremost step is defining goals that seem small but can bring change in the long run. Additionally, a good initiative is starting with small sustainability with a high IQ in recycling education.

Analyze the progress regularly

To be on the green track, the recycling team manager should call for regular meetings to analyze the progress. These meetings can be called quarterly or bi-yearly. In most cases, quarterly meetings work best. Moreover, year-end or year-beginning meetings can be great opportunities to set green goals according to market trends.

Communicate comprehensively

Another rule of thumb followed by the e-commerce giants and other companies is to “spread the word” through effective measures such as social media, newsletters, etc. The sustainability team should set monthly eco-goals at the year-end or year-beginning meetings, and newsletters should be circulated to spread your views in your community.

Technologize the recycling plan

Technology makes everything fun and easy. Many products are available in the market that can help achieve the green goals. Most of the time, people are unaware of the difference between recyclables and landfills. According to waste360, 20% of Americans place some trash in the recycling bin even if they are unsure of its recyclability. In this case, TrashBot can be a great solution, an advanced blend of computer vision, robotics, and artificial intelligence for separating recyclables from landfills. 

You can see TrashBot in action by clicking here.