America Recycles Day November 15

By Anthony L. Crisci, Counsel, Pennsylvania Beverage Association

Next year Pennsylvania will celebrate the 20th anniversary of curbside recycling in the Commonwealth, a program signed into law by Gov. Robert P. Casey in 1988 that has grown to include over 9 million residents in 1,364 municipalities across the state.

Recycling has become a habit that most people do every day around the house without a second thought.

As we celebrate America Recycles Day November 15, it is a great time to remember this good habit needs to be reinforced and expanded to achieve even more waste reduction, energy savings and employment opportunities for our citizens.

The public and private investment in our recycling programs is huge.

The Department of Environmental Protection provides over $48 million in grants to set up and support community-based recycling programs each year.

There are more than 3,200 businesses and organizations that recycle and use recycled materials in manufacturing, generating more than $18 billion in gross annual sales and employing more than 81,000 workers. These businesses paid more than $305 million in taxes to the state treasury, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

Aside from the economic benefits, the environmental benefits have been significant: 4.86 million tons of material that would otherwise be dumped in landfills is recycled annually. Recycling has saved enough energy to provide power to 940,000 homes for one year or put another way it has the energy equivalent of 786 gallons of gasoline, according to DEP.

Roadside littering of beverage containers, now collected in recycling programs, declined by 64 percent between 1988, the first year of the program, and 1999, according to a state Department of Transportation survey.

Clearly, Pennsylvania is on the right environmental path with its recycling efforts, but more must and can be done to build on the success of the system we have in place.

One creative idea to expand curbside recycling has resulted in tripling both the participation rates and the amount of material collected in pilot neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

RecycleBank, a private firm, works with communities and local businesses to provide residents with a dollar-incentive to recycle. In communities that sign on, residents earn RecycleBank “dollars” for each pound of material they recycle. These dollars can then be redeemed for coupons worth real dollars at local food stores, clothing shops and can even be donated to non-profit groups, up to $300 per year.

Since the pilot program in Philadelphia, RecycleBank has taken its program to dozens of other communities in Pennsylvania and other states with similar results.

Innovative solutions like RecycleBank that build on Pennsylvania’s already successful recycling program can both reinforce the good habits we have developed over the last 20 years and continue to make the Commonwealth an environmental leader.

Anthony L. Crisci serves as Counsel to the Pennsylvania Beverage Association which represents beverage bottlers serving the residents of Pennsylvania. He can be contacted at 717-234-1716.

11/9/2007