11th Annual America Recycles Day Approaches

Saturday, Nov. 15 marks the 11th annual America Recycles Day (ARD), hosted by the National Recycling Coalition.  ARD is dedicated to encouraging Americans to up their recycling habits through a number of initiatives and purchase products made from recycled materials.

On Saturday, organizations across the country will hold recycling events to increase awareness and participation in community recycling programs.

A Little History

ARD was inspired by the Texas Recycling Coalition, who developed a program called “Texas Recycles Day” in 1993. This statewide event was designed to put recycling in the spotlight, and though it took four years for the program to go nationwide, Texas Recycles Day was the model for the national program.

Since its inception in 1997, the ARD campaign has promoted “the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling and encouraged more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment.”

Get Involved

Twenty years ago, only 1,000 curbside recycling programs were available in the U.S. Today, over 10,000 curbside programs help over 82 million tons of materials have another chance at a useful life, saving billions of gallons of energy and millions of dollars in energy every year.

The America Recycles Day site features a number of ways for you to get plugged in around your community, including links to community pages for your state. While you’re there, try recycling with the “Conversionator,” a fun contraption that walks you through facts about the environmental and economical benefits of recycling common items such as aluminum cans, newspapers and plastic bottles.

Take the Plunge…and the Pledge

Even if you can’t make it to a recycling event in your area on Saturday, you can still do your part through everyday recycling. Unfortunately, Americans only recycle 1.5 pounds of the 4.6 pounds they generate on average each day. That means that you trash over 1,100 pounds of waste annually.

• I pledge to find out what materials I can and cannot recycle in my community.
• I pledge to lead by example in my neighborhood by recycling.
• I pledge to recycle batteries, cell phones and other electronic waste.
• I pledge to email my elected officials to ask them to increase funding for my community’s recycling programs.
• I pledge to tell five friends that recycling is the easiest thing they can do to slow global warming.

The beauty of recycling lies in its simplicity. By effortlessly tossing your everyday (recyclable) waste in the proper bin, you take trash and turn it into jobs, products and processes that not only boost our economy, but improve the health of the planet.

Trey Granger contributed to this article.