Earth Day is a good time to reflect on our individual impacts on the planet and what we can do. Waste prevention and recycling is a great place to start. Recycling is a great way to be actively helping our environment. The benefits of recycling go far beyond the materials we keep out of our landfills. By preventing waste from entering landfills and by recycling, we conserve resources, prevent pollution and protect the environment.

Recycling does make a real difference. Consider that the average household in California generates almost 1.2 tons of garbage a year. That's almost eight pounds per day per household!

By recycling we can reduce the need to continually mine virgin resources in new product production and reduce the amount of methane generated from landfills. For example, for every ton of paper recycled, over 17 trees and 7000 gallons of water can be saved.

Also, if California were to just increase our current recycling rates by 25 percent for commonly disposed materials (paper, bottles and cans), we could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by over 5 million tons. California currently has a recycling rate of just over 52 percent.

California has come a long way in the last three decades when it comes to recycling. Since the inception of California's Bottle Bill, Californians have recycled over 300 billion beverage containers (that's over 10 million tons). Bottle and can recycling has helped establish an entire recycling industry and has added hundreds of thousands of jobs to California's economy.

In the past year, a growing number of meeting planners have been taking steps to make their conventions and gatherings just a little more environmentally friendly by reducing waste and lowering their environmental impact. Because meetings can range from massive technology conventions to smaller company retreats, the environment is affected in a variety of ways, through travel, food, electricity and water consumed, paper from brochures, handouts that may be discarded and exhibit booths built for the few days and quickly dismantled. And even the little stuff can add to a lot over time. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Ilana DeBare reports.

And a 2000 study by the Environmental Protection Agency said that the typical convention-goer who is staying at a hotel generates about 20 pounds of trash per day, compared with 4.6 pounds at home.

The EPA estimated the total trash generated by convention-goers at 730,000 tons per year - enough to fill eight Transamerica Pyramids.

Read the complete article.

What You Can Do

1. Learn more about being more environmentally friendly through CAW's Living Green section.

As initially reported by CAW earlier this month, today's (December 24, 2007) Los Angeles Times features a story on how more Californians are recycling, boosting recovery rates for beverage containers to record levels in 2007.

The story, by Times Staff Writer Tami Abdollah, includes quotes from CAW Executive Director Mark Murray, California Department of Conservation Director Bridgett Luther, and a growing cadre of California consumers redeeming their beverage containers for cash.

In January, the state increased the California Refund Value to a nickel for small beverage containers and a dime for large ones. The respective one- and two-cent hikes, they believe, may have changed a lot of perceptions.

"If you see four pennies on the ground and you're walking on the street, are you going to bother to pick them up?" asked Mark Murray, executive director for Californians Against Waste, a statewide environmental organization that focuses on recycling. "Whereas you see a nickel or dime on the ground, you're likely to pick that up. The same thing goes to just seeing that value in a can and thinking, 'I'm tossing a nickel in the trash.' "

For the complete story click here.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a Green Section today on information about how to curtail your waste and what people and organizations are doing already. Everything from how to start a "worm" bin in your home, where to recycle hard and even what to do with today's newspaper when you are done with it besides just tossing it in the recycling bin are in this section.

Currently, the state of California diverts 54% of trash from landfills, a number that has steadily increased since the passage of AB 939 in 1989 that required the state to reach a 50% goal in 2000. This goal however wasn't met until 2005. Increase in the state's population has been one cause of the problem, as well an more and more commercial waste being thrown into landfills. Commercial trash can account for as much as 60& of the waste sent to landfills. CAW Executive Director Mark Murray says in the San Francisco Chronicle,

"We need to update the law to recognize that the waste stream and the waste generating system has changed since 1989. We need to reduce the amount of packaging we're producing."

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Check out information about the zero waste policies at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Fairfield, how to start a worm bin, learn more about how SF's waste goes to Jepsen Praire, and some tips on how to make your home more recycling friendly.