It seems like common sense that recycling is good for the environment. The less trash we dump into landfills or burn in incinerators, the better. Did you know that recycling is also good for the economy? In fact, the more we divert waste into recycling, the more jobs we create. In 2011, the Tellus Institute…
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We’ve been saying for a while that there’s a trash crisis in the U.S., with excess garbage putting the environment at risk and draining municipal coffers. It’s why we’re so committed to cutting waste and increasing recycling. And now a television news program out of Boston has come to the same conclusion. The program, Chronicle, dedicated all of last…
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If you care about solid waste reduction, by now you’ve probably read John Tierney’s New York Times opinion piece denigrating the value of recycling. It’s a long piece, but in a nutshell, Tierney’s two-fold argument is this: There’s no point in recycling unless it makes economic sense—and it doesn’t make economic sense. He’s missing the…
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We’re all used to hearing the knock on waste reduction initiatives: if they’re effective, they’re expensive–and if they don’t cost very much, they don’t do very much. Right? Wrong. One of the most impressive things about the pay-as-you-throw model is that it breaks that paradigm, simultaneously bringing cities and towns profound waste reduction while also making a…
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We’re all familiar with the environmental costs of throwing away as much garbage as Americans do (165 million tons in 2012): greenhouse gas emissions and risks to soil, air, and water quality. But what about the financial costs of all this waste? Every year, solid waste costs the U.S. economy $384 billion. Let’s break that…
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By now, most of us know the environmental benefits of recycling well—decreased energy use, slower depletion of raw materials, less strain on landfills—but recycling has a host of economic benefits that are just as compelling. Simply put, recycling creates jobs. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, while overall US employment was growing by 2.1%…
Read MoreAt WasteZero, we’re a company on a mission. That mission? To cut the trash in half across the US—saving towns and cities tremendous amounts of money and protecting and preserving precious natural resources. Cutting the trash in half may sound like an audacious goal, but it’s absolutely achievable. How do we know it can be…
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