Happy holidays

As the holidays draw near, we are wishing you joy.

The season in all its glamor is also a chance to trim back the pomp/circumstance and focus on the things that really matter. A day off to hike, cook, raise a glass, light candles, hibernate(?) Maybe an evening with friends; a go-cart race; a trip to Enchanted Rock(?) Dancing! To set the mood, here are a few tips for a greener holiday.

Top of the list is to wrap gifts in old maps and comic pages. Don't know about you but that really takes me back...

And if that weren't enough, fans of re-use at Stanford tell us that "If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields." No elves have been dispatched to test this, but it is Stanford.

So here's to your holiday being bright. To things that cost nothing but mean the most. And to all you do to make the world a better place.

TX Recycles Day

On a beautiful fall San Anto day, scores of people came out to learn about recycling in the city and pick up hints from Helioise, the keynote speaker.

At our table, kids--and no small number of adults--loved the puzzles/games on recycling and the Top Ten Reasons to Recycle. And many people signed up to get involved in community activism.

If you had the chance to come out, thank you! If not, here are a few links to online resources for kids:

Puzzle by TeacherVision

Wordsearches by Euless

and the latest Facts and Figures on Municipal Solid Waste in the US (EPA)

And an open question: What do you think are the best ways to teach recycling?

Texas Recycles Day this Saturday

This year, the city of San Antonio will once again host Texas Recycles Day to raise awareness about the benefits of recycling.

We'll be there - just look for the Sierra Club Alamo Chapter, Recycling Committee booth - hope you'll stop by and say hello!

The event will take place at 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 14 at Woodlawn Lake Park, 1103 Cincinnati.

Classes: You can take a class on composting and pick up information on grasscycling (people say that's a real word), water recycling, and cutting down on plastic bags.

Recycling and donating food items: Also, you can recycle gently used old sofas, mattresses, household appliances and electronic materials at this event--this is particularly a chance for apartment residents who don't have recycling options to drop off these items. And the San Antonio Food Bank will be on hand to collect non-perishable food items.

There'll be music and concessions through the day.

Check it out. For more info see the press release or visit www.sanantonio.gov/swmd.

Welcome

A Few Great Events coming up in October - Join us!
Oct. 2: First Friday tabling - look for us out front of the now-opening Friendly Spot icehouse (former location of King Willie's on South Alamo)

Oct 10th: CPS Livegreenfest - sharing a booth with the fabulous Cove Restaurant - NOTE: this event is postponed due to rain - we'll keep you posted on new dates.

A Few Quick Tips for Promoting Recycling in San Anto:
Each day, you, me and everyone we meet can take a simple, everyday step to make our city a better place. We can all reduce, reuse, and recycle to keep our bills down and keep useful material out of landfills.

If you already have curbside recycling at your house: you can make the most of it by recycling not only the usual glass bottles and jars, but also paper of almost all types, plastics (labled #1 - #7) and metal. For questions: call "311."

If you live in an apartment or are a business owner and don't yet have recycling, you can help us secure recycling options by signing and circulating this petition. If you're a tenant, you can also ask your property manager what plans are underway to set up recycling.

Meanwhile, on this blog you'll find a raft of resources to help, brought to you by the Alamo Group of the Sierra Club.

We hope to hear from you: You can post your stories and suggestions here!

City of Austin mulls over more recycling, but cost in these lean times, an issue

We hear from an article by Sarah Coppola in the Austin American Statesman that the City of Austin is considering a requirement that more offices, businesses and smaller apartment complexes recycle—but some have raised concerns about the practicality and cost.

Right now, Austin requires apartments and complexes with 100 or more units and businesses with 100 or more employees to make recycling containers available onsite and pay private haulers to pick them up. The city program covers single-family homes, some small businesses, duplexes, and fourplexes. But, the article reports, according to Rick Cofer, head of a City Council-appointed committee on the issue “The city must broaden its 11-year-old rules if it wants to meet its recently adopted "zero waste" goal of diverting 90 percent of trash from landfills by 2040.”

Austin, like other cities in the region is struggling to do the right thing in a tough economy and weak commodities market. Today’s return on useful trash is just not what it once was. But also, the city shells out substantial funds to have recycling hauled to…you guessed it…San Antonio!

Upshot…SA-town has a local plant but no recycling ordinance for apartments or businesses yet on the books. If we want to achieve serious waste reduction, what about skipping the partial-solution and building the capacity for city-wide participation? Your thoughts?

What people are saying

Some people say San Antonio won't recycle. But then there are those who say...

“I live in an apartment and I have to bring all of my stuff to work to recycle…”

“Please help us make a difference with recycling at apartments.”

“Recycling should be available to all citizens of San Antonio.”

“Living in the apt community now has simply disappointed me because they do not offer recycling. I pay for trash and i would happily pay for recycling. Seeing the 10 dumpsters overflowing with waste, and being picked up 3x a week is outrageous. We are so far behind and our children have a great lesson to learn in recycling. Please help”

“I'm a college student and I was recently given an assignment for a class I was taking to estimate the amount of stuff being thrown into the dumpsters in my surrounding neighborhood that could have otherwise been recycled. Well, after a month all I can say is that seeing is truly believing. My God, it truly is a shame that San Antonio doesn't offer recycling services to more of its residents. About 60% of the junk tossed was recyclable.”

“I spent an hour driving around trying to find a place to recycle my cardboard boxes, and I ended up throwing them in the dumpster because I could not find a place to take them. If given the chance or the incentive, people will recycle.”

What do you think?

Ease of recycling important to reduce waste stream

Hey San Antonio! Recent research published in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics by E. Brouillat, demonstrated that improvement in recycling is necessary but not sufficient to solve the issue of increased waste. Increasing the ease of recycling and extending product life will also be necessary to slow the waste stream.

Increasing the ease of recycling:
This finding underscores the importance of providing more locations for San Antonians to recycle. Just think, how much more would be recycled if the locations to do so were readily available? Help us in the support of this cause by signing our petition.

Here are 2 ways you can extend product life:
- Buy reusable drinking containers – safe plastics have the numbers 2, 4, & 5 inside the chasing arrows, Voss sells glass containers at some HEB’s, Kleen Kanteen also has drinking containers made out of stainless steel
- Buy refurbished computers from vendors in San Antonio:
Allgen Computer Warehouse - http://www.allgen.com/
All Systems Go Software http://www.asg-sa.com/

Prom Dresses to Wingtips

Beyond the usual papers, bottles and cans, a host of organizations and individuals are joining forces to keep the useful stuff of our lives in circulation and out of landfills.

Have a stroller that’s taking up space in your closet? Freecycle is a grassroots group with 7+ million members around the world that promotes the free exchange of still-useful stuff in local towns. You can post or ask for an item at a group near you at http://www.freecycle.org/.

If you find yourself with a “new or nearly new” gown, purse, jewlery or wrap, you can donate the duds that allow a high school student at Northeast ISD to attend her prom, recital or scholarship ceremony at Formally Yours Project, a nonprofit put together by the Lee High School Campus PTA.

Dell and Goodwill Industries set up the Reconnect Project to “accept any brand of used computer equipment in any condition” Just enter your zip code to find a drop off location.

And the EPA has published ways to recycle your old cell phone, batteries and charger through a retailer at Plug-In To eCycling.

Karma may be more difficult to recycle, but there’s always offering needed help to a friend.

Some reasons to recycle

I asked some of my friends why and how they recycle, and this is how they responded:
1) I recycle because almost everything I "throw away" is recyclable and because we've trashed our planet enough already.
2) I do it because I hate waste and the idea of waste and excessively putting pressure on the environment due to landfills and the like.
3) I recycle aluminum cans at school because the money goes to our school. I recycle paper at school because I love trees and try to preserve them plus, we have a recycle bin outside for paper only.
4) I recycle when the tools are in place to make it easy.
5) I recycle because it saves me money.
6) I recycle because I like the idea of doing something to help the environment. I recycle everything I can from plastic, glass, aluminum, paper, and cardboard.
7) I recycle because it's the easiest way I can do something for the environment.
8) To me, recycling is part of being a good person. By making the simple choice to put my trash where it belongs, I am doing something for myself and everyone else too.

Truth found in Aqua Veritas

In Italy, where 40 gallons of bottled water are consumed per person per year, city officials are promoting "Aqua Veritas" (tap water or "the mayor's water") to quench a mighty thirst and stem the tide of plastic bottles, according to the New York Times. In so doing, Venetian officials say, they have "reduc[ed] the amount of plastic trash over all to 261 tons a month now from 288 tons a year ago."

Here in the U.S., which remains, the world's top consumer of bottled water--and where consumption has doubled in the last decade--we might want to take a page the Italian "libro." If we did so, we might keep the estimated 60 million plastic bottles out of landfills and incinerators that wind up there each day. If city water isn't available or to taste, there's always filtering...or taking water to work in a re-usable flask.

When we do use plastic, we need better options in the Alamo City to get it to the recycling bin. You can help by signing or spreading the word about this Sierra Club petition.

If you still drink the bottled variety, I'm like you and I'm gonna commit to change.

San Antonio Can

When it comes to the humble proposal that we can meet higher goals for recycling in San Antonio, we sometimes hear, "It'll never happen in Texas...it'll never happen in San Antonio."

When inspiration runs low, it never hurts to get perspective. Today that comes in the form of a photograph. In this picture by David Gilkey (NPR website), donkey handlers are shepherding presidential ballots across a narrow bridge to reach to remote regions of Afghanistan.

Surrmounting would-be challenges to expanding recycling here, pales in comparison. There's no doubt that if we have the will, we can get it done.

My quest to find a reusable drinking container

In the fall of 2005, I decided to drink more water. I started buying cases of water bottles because they were cheap and portable. I could feel good about striving toward my eight glasses a day and throwing my plastic bottles in the recycling bin.

By the next year, I noticed several of my friends toting outdoor reusable plastic bottles. A couple of girls I knew even had cute pink ones with designs on them. It seemed like a good idea to not be contributing as much plastic to the waste stream and the bottles were bigger. So, I bought one. I used that bottle for an entire year before I discovered that these #7 plastic bottles had been recalled due to bad health outcomes in studies on animals! I said goodbye to my old friend with a proper burial in the recycling bin and began the search for a new bottle.

First, I went back to the same company. I purchased their new plastic bottles that are made out of # 5 plastic, but somehow couldn’t allow myself to get too comfortable with the plastic taste in my mouth as I gulped down my precious H20. So, I tried an outdoor stainless steel option from another company. The water from that container had a nice metallic taste to replace the plastic one I was previously experiencing. Plus, I left my stainless steel container in my car for an afternoon in the South Texas heat and ended up finding rust spots on the inside of the mouth. I returned the bottle and was graciously provided a new one . . . but I started bringing glasses of water to work and refilling them in the sink.

A few months later, the stars were aligned and heaven smiled upon me as I chanced upon a glass bottle on the shelf in the water aisle at the grocery store. It . . . was . . . perfect! The tall ones hold 27 fluid ounces! And, the water I refill in it (even after sitting over night) still tastes like water! 2 recommendations: preferred method of cleaning (shaking water mixed with soap) and remember, you’re carrying glass!

"S.A. weighs recycling for apartment dwellers"

Get updated with this article by Sarah Snyder on San Antonio's pilot to explore apartment recycling for tenants.