TNCC: How trashy are we?

13 Jul TNCC: How trashy are we?

by Kris Holstrom

What's left after the party? Do you leave your trash behind? Do you sort your recycling? Do you pick up after others? TNCC's summer started off doing compost, recycling and trash for Mountainfilm. It was a huge success at reducing trash by avoiding single use items. Trash was reduced more than 80%! Yahoo!
Efforts to reduce waste and increase the amounts diverted to recycling and compost were incredibly successful – up 8 to 15% over last year, which was better even than the year before. KOTO DooDah, 4th of July – yes yes yes. TNCC even had someone coming to visit our region who called to ask where they could bring their compost. We had her bring it to Tomten Farm's booth at the Farmers Market so we could take it home.

To me that is true dedication – following through on your composting commitment even while on vacation! Thank you!

Why do we care? There's the obvious litany from my parents' era – "waste not, want not". Why would you throw away something useful? Do we not see the value in the recyclables? Not understand the amount of materials, resources and energy that go into the creation of the 'throwaway' bottle? Not care about the carbon emissions created along the way – from start to landfill?

I think we actually do. Sometimes we don't know exactly how to do things right, but recycling in this region is pretty darn easy now. Does your plastic have a number on it? Well then it is recyclable here. Glass, tin, (but no aluminum foil). We all save when we reduce our 'waste' heading to the landfill – fewer trucks on the road, valuable resources reused instead of discarded, fewer items creating methane gas in the landfill – and more.

If you want more info about recycling in our region, contact us at TNCC. Organize your HOA, decontaminate the recycling, pull recycling out of trash!

It makes a difference – and it matters!