Monday, June 21, 2010

Adding to the Recycle List

We've always taken steps to reduce the amount of waste here at Rancho Verde. We've done our part to recycle cans, bottles and paper (no greasy food packaging though!) and even the amount of water that runs off our streets into the sewer, but one item that you may not think about is the simple nursery pot we receive almost all of our plant material in. Any given week we receive hundreds of these pots, and in the past these would have been cast aside or thrown away because the type of plastic is not readily recycled in most municipal programs. Since moving to Rancho Verde, we've recycled these pots, but a drop in demand over the past few years made that challenging. Despite that, we were able to recycle 22,770 pounds of the nursery pot plastic last year alone. This year, we're thrilled to be teamed up with Adams Plastics, another west side business, to make sure these pots are always recycled after use.
We look forward to seeing how much we're able to recycle this year!
Update 6/29/10
Our total up to this point is 10, 866 lbs, with an additional 7-8000 going to Antek, Madison to a different recycling plant. Not too bad for a couples of months worth of work.

2 comments:

  1. I love your conscious commitment - and success -in finding a way to recycle your nursery pots! And the cherry on top is the costs savings of diverting them from your waste stream.

    Great work!

    Stephanie
    www.thebrightbeat.com

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  2. thanks, it sure isn't easy! Especially now that America isn't buying from China all that plastic crap therefore no one wants "our" plastic crap.
    CW

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