Per Austin Resource Recovery’s 2018 Compost Audit Report, the top 5 contaminants in the City of Austin’s curbside compost collection are: 1) Recyclables (glass, plastics, tin/aluminum, cardboard)2) Clothes/Textiles3) Styrofoam4) Treated Wood 5) Trash The entire Compostable Material Composition Audit is available here. This is the revised report clarifying cardboard’s original listing as a contaminant. It no…
Disposable/Single Use Freezer Bags They have many names. An image search for the technical name brings up at least the following: You may receive them using meal-kit delivery like Blue Apron, food delivery, your Amazon Prime Now order or an Instacart order. According to Austin Resource Recovery, this is a “bubble wrap and a type…
Recycling plastic bags and plastic film One of the areas that I think is often overlooked in educating citizens is plastic bag and plastic film recycling. Per Austin Resource Recovery (ARR), these are “Those materials you can push your finger through that cannot be recycled in your blue [recycling] bins.” Plastic bags and plastic film…
This month I attended a group meeting. I arrived early as I always do (I hate late minute parking in Austin and I cannot parallel park!) When I saw there were disposable name tags to fill out, I pulled out my reusable name tag and clipped it on. New attendees to this monthly meeting asked…
The following information was shared with City of Austin Zero Waste Block Leaders in the February/March 2019 newsletter. This is long so bear with me. It’s an official response from Austin Resource Recovery/The City of Austin to citizen concerns. China’s program to stop importing recyclables, “Operation Green Fence,” was formally implemented beginning in 2013 because…
The most popular post I ever made on social media as a Zero Waste Block Leader was a clarification on lids. At one of the recent neighborhood association meetings, the big question of the day for me was if canning lids could go in the recycling. Well, as you can image we had quite the…
I’ve been interested becoming a greener person since my third grade teacher taught us about recycling, litter, saving water, etc. The first two activities I remember doing were an audit of our recycling bin, and making a soda bottle weight to take up toilet tank space to reduce water usage. In 2014 I became a…