By Helen Venada
San Juan County Public Works Department
More than a thousand events have been scheduled across the country to showcase America Recycles Day, November 15th; many events extend for weeks before and after the 15th. Events are listed by zipcode at https://earth911.com.
Why should we do anything more than we’re already doing? What can San Juan Islanders do to join the effort to reinvigorate our nation-wide recycling efforts? (BTW, the state Department of Ecology reports that San Juan County’s recycling rate in 2009 was 29.6%.)
Here are some very good reasons for us to take the time to think about why recycling is important:
- recycling saves energy and fuel use;
- recycling makes natural resources available for manufacture of new materials;
- recycling reduces waste going to the landfill.
Recycling has also been identified as the easiest step we can take to get actively involved in building more sustainability into our communities.
San Juan County residents and businesses can honor AMERICA RECYCLES DAY by:
- promoting and improving our existing recycling program (check out the County Public Works webpage “Recycling Guidelines” at https://www.co.san-juan.wa.us/publicworks/recycling.aspx to see what can be recycled on your island;
- planning local events to recycle more items or otherwise green up your island (go to www.Earth911.com for ideas or to submit a new event);
- re-committing ourselves to using reusable shopping bags and beverage containers;
- choosing purchases with little or no packaging (e.g. by shopping locally or buying food in bulk);
- buying products that are made from recycled materials to stimulate the recycling market.
Watch for updates coming soon on Public Works webpage with local ideas on how to reduce, reuse, and recycle all kinds of materials. Let’s hear about your good ideas to improve the 3R’s in the San Juans!
Helen Venada is the SJC Waste Reduction and Hazardous Waste Coordinator. She can be reached at helenv@sjcpublicworks.org, or by calling 370-0503.
