|
Issue 6 - November, 2011
We strive to create a healthy, safe environment for all people to live, work and play. Find out what Ramsey County is doing to go green inside and out! Look for this e-newsletter in your inbox every other month. You’re also invited to submit article ideas by sending us an email.
Recycling Video Wins Regional Emmy® Award
A video guide to school recycling initiated and funded by Saint Paul - Ramsey County Public Health, produced by the City of Roseville, filmed and edited by CTV North Suburbs, and starring students and staff at Roseville’s Parkview Center School, has won a 2011 Upper Midwest Regional Emmy® Award.
“Boxes, Bottles and Banana Peels: A Guide to School Recycling," recently won first place in the "Education/Schools - Program/Special/Series” category of the Regional Emmy Award competition of The Upper Midwest Chapter of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The video offers a step-by-step guide for schools considering establishing or improving a program for recycling paper, bottles cans and food leftovers. View the video.
New Medicine Collection Program Debuts
Residents can now safely dispose of unwanted, expired or unused medicines at Ramsey County’s public drop boxes in Saint Paul and Arden Hills. This new year-round collection program is a partnership between Public Health and the Sheriff’s Office. Its goal is to prevent crime and protect the environment. Storing medicines can lead to drug abuse or poisoning, and medicines flushed down the drain or disposed of in the trash can harm the environment. All medicines from households are accepted, including prescription, over-the-counter and pet medicines.
Curbside Plastics Recycling to Expand
Two haulers in the Twin Cities, Waste Management and Allied Waste, have announced they will be accepting more plastic items at the curb beginning January 1. Customers have wanted to recycle more than just bottles and jugs for a long time but haulers have not had markets to send them to be recycled. Technology has changed that. The naked eye can not always tell the difference between plastics. Now a high-speed optical sorter can differentiate between the types of plastics and send them to the right place to be recycled.
There are two things to remember with this new program:
• Please don’t include Styrofoam,
• No loose plastic bags; stuff bags inside another plastic bag.
The expanded curbside plastic recycling will not be available for Eureka Recycling customers in St. Paul, Roseville, Arden Hills and Lauderdale. Eureka Recycling will continue to only collect bottles and jugs.
Clearing up the Confusion about Plastic Codes
Speaking of plastics, do you know what the numbers on the bottom mean? For years manufacturers have been required to put a number to identify the plastic since there are seven different types of plastic resin. For example, a number "1" means it is High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE). Manufacturers placed the number inside recycling arrows which many interpret to mean the item can be recycled. State and other local representatives have been working with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to remove the recycling arrows since not all plastics can be recycled and it often is confusing. In November, ASTM will vote on whether to remove the chasing arrows and replace them with a solid triangle.
Recycling at North Saint Paul's History Car Cruze Shows
Ramsey County has purchased recycling bins for cities to use in their parks and public areas. In North Saint Paul the bins have been used for the City’s popular History Car Cruze, held downtown on Friday nights from June through September. Hundreds of people enjoy looking at vintage cars that park and drive along Main street. Since adding the recycling containers alongside the trash receptacles, the City has found that the amount of trash collected after the car shows has deceased and a lot more bottles and cans are now being recycled.
Leave Your Leaves with Us
The Ramsey County Yard Waste sites are burgeoning with activity this time of year as residents drop-off leaves they’ve diligently raked from yards. Each year approximately 400,000 residents visit one of the County’s seven yard waste sites to drop off yard waste, or to pick up wood mulch, compost, or black dirt – all free of charge! About one third of those 400,000 visits occur in October and November during the peak of the “leaf season.” When residents manage their yard waste at a Ramsey County site or in a backyard compost bin, they save thousands of yards of landfill space and recycle valuable nutrients back into the soil by making compost. Furthermore, residents who visit the yard waste sites in the spring can pick up free compost (as available) which closes the recycling loop and provides their gardens and lawns with a valuable soil amendment.
Community POWER Grantees Selected
Ramsey County has selected its grantees for round 11 of the Community POWER (Partners On Waste Education and Reduction) program. The organizations are: Fishing for Life, Laura Jeffrey Academy, Minnesota African Women's Organization, Northeast Neighborhood Living at Home Nurse Block Program, Project Pride in Living, Union Park District Council, West 7th Community Center, and West Side Citizens Organization. Community POWER reaches out to members of non-environmental organizations in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington Counties. Grantees (its staff and volunteers) receive training on waste issues, free written materials, and money to complete a project that they design. Since 2001, the program has helped over 100 groups all over the Twin Cities metro area actively reduce waste and toxicity.
Solid Waste Master Plan Update
Ramsey County is planning beyond the garbage can by encouraging everyone to reduce waste, increase recycling, separate organic wastes, increase processing and reduce landfilling. The waste management system is complex. Minnesota has taken a systems approach operated by a combination of private and public sector participants to manage waste in a way intended to prevent pollution, conserve resources, protect health and the environment, and to not pass costs onto future generations. Ramsey County has a recycling rate of 54% with yard waste and source reduction credits, but we can and want to recycle more.
To reach a higher goal everyone will have to participate by recycling more items, including food waste, and more often at home, school and work, and away from home. We have also been a national leader in efforts to reduce the toxicity of the waste stream through our salvage yard, health care waste and demolition debris programs but there is still work to do. We strive to achieve the highest and best use for waste that is created. Check out our plan and the supporting documentation and then tell us what you think about planning beyond the garbage can.
A Publication of Saint Paul - Ramsey County Public
Health
|
