Recycle Utah

Nonprofit Summit County, Utah Recycling Center

#sustainability

Voting Green—How Important Is It?

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Many of us have made some positive green choices in how we live. However, according to polls, not many of us consider it a priority to vote for candidates who support reducing impacts of climate change—on environmental protections, renewable energy, land-wise development, and the sustainable production of food and goods. It takes time to find out who your national, state and district candidates are and what, if any pro-environment policies they support. If you want to vote what’s right for you and not vote because it’s a pillar of democracy and everyone who can vote should do so, make sure you are politically educated. Have you attended any candidate forums, watched debates, read and listened to news from trusted sources? If you don’t feel you’re well-enough informed, there’s time to “git on it.”

If you are a registered voter, you have received a mail-in ballot. You may not use it to vote but open it and study all “your” candidates. These are based on your address.

To learn more about your candidates and proposed state amendments, search on-line. One helpful site is the League of Women Voters’ VOTE411.org. There, a mock ballot has been created for you. Included, is a series of questions directed to each candidate who may or may not have chosen to answer them. Note this. You can “practice vote” through the entire ballot.

Other sites O2utah.org/ includes a list of candidates they endorse. https://vote.utah.gov/

By Bev Harrison

Responsible Air Travel

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Flights are extremely energy-intensive requiring on average a gallon of fuel per second while in the air. Commercial flights are responsible for anywhere between 2% to 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere. Airlines receive major fuel subsidies that don’t incentivize or encourage sustainability in the air travel industry. So, while flying has allowed for incredible cultural and societal advances, it’s important to recognize the environmental impacts flying has and take steps to support a more sustainable air travel industry.

As the holiday season approaches and increased travel is inevitable, here are some green tips when booking flights:

  1. Research and choose flights with airlines that are taking efforts to mitigate their environmental impact.
  2. Shorten your itinerary and take nonstop flights! Multiple flights and layovers only increase your air travel and thus, your air travel emissions.
  3. Fly during the day! The plane itself and the clouds it creates help reflect solar heat during the day.
  4. When possible, take ground transportation and limit your air travel entirely.
  5. Purchase carbon offsets yourself and donate to organizations that work to offset carbon emissions.
  6. Take political action! Vote for elected officials that will hold airlines responsible for their carbon emissions and get involved with organizations that are calling for environmental action.

While these green air travel tips are important, they can also be an extra cost to unregulated flight prices due to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. If you’re financially able to take on these extra costs to reduce your air travel carbon footprint, it’s especially important that you do.

By Addison Marr

Eco-Handwarmers

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Winter is approaching, including cold ski days – what does one do about eco-friendly hand warmers? We know about the heaps of trash being deposited into landfills, so how can we help reduce this? It’s so easy to purchase low-cost plastic-wrapped, single-use hand warmers, but what’s in these things anyway, in addition to the waste alone?

The hand and foot warmer industry is growing! There are currently four types on the market: 1. Disposable Air-activated, 2. Reusable sodium acetate, 3. Lighter Fuel, and 4. Reusable/Rechargeable.

Air-activated hand warmers emit heat when exposed to air. After all the iron has reacted, this product is most likely landfilled. Most of these single-use warmers can be toxic – you wouldn’t want your pet to eat them. Sodium Acetate warmers require a bit of labor but are a decent reusable option. Reusable lighter-fuel warmers are interesting and lastly there are battery-operated warmers. Any warmer that is reusable is the most cost efficient, depending on how often you require warmers.

Air-activated warmers are only compostable if the filling is organic. If the inner compounds are synthetic (usually), soil will be damaged. Moral of the story – know your product. If hand and foot warmers are a necessity for you or your family, perhaps it’s time for a battery charged option (with reusable batteries) or even the Sodium Acetate variety. If you rarely use warmers, then disposables may suffice. This is life. Weigh it out, always considering the landfill, our water, air, and soil. Good luck!

By Mary Closser

Happy (Green) Halloween!

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It’s Halloween time! Unfortunately, this season is often marked by plastic-fibered, cheaply produced costumes, masks, and decorations that are made in highly polluting overseas factories and shipped to big box stores. Americans spend billions of dollars on this stuff. And after a year or two? They throw it in the trash.

“Trick or treat!” Halloween’s #1 fun-filled activity is about collecting individual plastic-wrapped sweets in large plastic bags. And what usually happens to the leftovers? They are thrown in the trash.

Pumpkins galore! Often trucked to us from faraway commercial farms. We carve them into Halloween faces. Fun! Most end up in landfills where, like all food waste, they produce methane gas.

Make Halloween a green holiday. Organize and participate in a costume swap. Use parts of costumes to create new looks. Hit thrift shops and put costumes together from reusable materials. Make festive decorations made out of organic material. Store everything for another year. Buy locally grown pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks. Use pumpkin flesh for baking and seeds for roasting a tasty snack. Leftover pieces are nutritious food for animals such as squirrels and deer. Compost pumpkins. Use small recyclable or reusable trick or treat bags and consider how many sweets you want your children and you to eat. Don’t end up throwing out sweets in their plastic wrappers!

Enjoy the season’s experiences without the waste – Fall Harvest Festivals, Corn Mazes, Halloween Yards, BooLights, WitchFests, Pumpkin Days, hayrides, Little Haunts, Halloween Trains, Haunted Hollows, films, fun runs. Happy Halloween!

By Bev Harrison

Produce Out of the Bag

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Many of us are in the habit of bringing our own reusable bags to the grocery store. Hooray! Unfortunately, not so many of us have significantly reduced our use of plastic produce bags. And especially during this season of abundant fruits and vegetables, these filmy polyethylene produce bags are rapidly spinning off their rollers. Resist!

Now these bags, like all plastic bags made from sheets of polymer film, can be recycled into new materials. For this to happen, they must be stuffed into a plastic bag collection box located in the front of many retailers or taken to Recycle Utah. This collection system and the processing equipment required to recycle plastic bags is different from that provided by curbside programs. So—plastic bags should never go in our bins!

Considering these points will help you decide not to grab a plastic produce bag for your next purchase of fruits and vegetables.

*All plastic bags can be used again and again. Use your produce bags repeatedly. Just place them in the bottom of your grocery bags.

*Go bagless with produce that has a rind or inedible skin, like bananas, citrus, avocados, corn.

*Forego taking a bag for single produce items, like broccoli or peppers. Putting them in a bag may reduce bacteria in a few steps along the way, but it does not eliminate germs. That’s why we wash produce before eating it.

*Purchase your own produce bags made of washable, biodegradable fibers like cotton, hemp and jute fabric or mesh.

By Bev Harrison

Join Park City’s New Reuse Pilot!

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Did you know that the US generates over 10,000 tons of plastic packaging waste every year? That’s a lot of plastic going to landfills! To fix this linear system of ‘take, make, waste’, Park City is spearheading circular economy solutions that ‘reduce, reuse, recycle, and regenerate’. One solution is an exciting, new pilot for Reusable To-Go Containers that launches October 1st!

Park City’s Reuse Pilot by Bold Reuse provides a way for customers to reduce their container waste with a sustainable packaging system that replaces single-use takeout containers. The City has partnered with Bold Reuse, an innovative packaging reuse company, Recycle Utah, and several local restaurants for this new pilot. Participating restaurants include Savoury Kitchen, Deer Valley Grocery-Café, GuestHaus, Shabu, Salt Box, and Este Pizza.

The program process is simple. Customers can sign up through the website or mobile app and purchase a $10 monthly subscription to use 2 boxes an unlimited number of times. Once you’ve signed up, order at a participating restaurant, and let staff know that you have a Bold Reuse subscription. The restaurant will package your order in the reusable container, and when you’re done, you can rinse the container and take it to a designated drop box! Collection boxes will be located at participating restaurants and Recycle Utah’s Center. If at least 1 container has been returned, you can order with a reusable container again – a truly circular solution! Join the reuse revolution by signing up for the program at boldreuse.com/parkcity!

By Haylee Neel