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How Are You Celebrating America Recycles Day?

Happy America Recycles Day! Here’s how some associations are recognizing the only national day dedicated to promoting and advancing recycling in the United States.

Stop. Before you pitch your plastic bottle into the trash, consider that today is America Recycles Day. Established in 1997 by the National Recycling Coalition and celebrated every year on November 15, the national initiative is dedicated to promoting recycling in the United States.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate 250 million tons of waste every year. That’s 4.4 pounds of waste per person. But the good news is that we are recycling more. In 2011, the recycling rate in the United States was 34 percent, an increase from less than 10 percent in 1980.

Associations, for their part, are no stranger to promoting greater sustainability and recycling efforts. Just last month, the Consumer Electronics Association honored several electronics manufacturers for their e-cycling efforts. Hewlett-Packard, Best Buy, Dell, and Samsung were recognized as part of CEA’s e-Cycling Leadership Initiative encouraging consumers to recycle 1 billion pounds of electronics every year by 2016.

In honor of America Recycles Day, several associations are encouraging their members and the public to recycle more.

  • To help foster more discussion around recycling, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., is hosting its first-ever Twitter chat today. Interested participants can follow or use the hashtag #ScrapChat to share their own recycling challenges, learn new recycling tips, and find out ways to encourage others to recycle more.
  • Need to unload a hard hat? The Associated General Contractors of America for the first time is sponsoring a Hard Hat Recycling Challenge this year. AGC is encouraging members to set up collection bins for old or unsafe hard hats or to bring their hats to recycling facilities that accept them. At the end of the three-week challenge, AGC will tally and announce how many hard hats were recycled.
  • The National Association of Case Management is getting in on the action, too. On its website, NACM lists several recycling programs for some commonly recycled items, as well as some not-so-common ones, such as hair dryers, carpet, and bras.

Is your association celebrating America Recycles Day? Do you promote green initiatives all year round? Let us know in the comments.

(Digital Vision/Thinkstock)

Katie Bascuas

By Katie Bascuas

Katie Bascuas is associate editor of Associations Now. MORE

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