OPERATIONS NEWS
Big Changes in Recycling

by MJ Leplae

Haste makes waste
A cooperative grocery store is a great place to slow down and learn. The bag credit campaign is a hit (bring in and use a canvas bag for your groceries, we give you a dime; bring and use a paper bag, we give you a nickel). Yet I propose more reduction. I work in the maintenance department and four times a week I empty trash and recycling. Recently, I was witness to a Waste Management (WM) worker placing a large white sticker on our green recycling bin. The sticker said: “SINGLE SORT RECYCLING ACCEPTED.” He explained that WM now processes glass, tin, mixed paper, cereal boxes, junk mail and plastics 1-7. This program started in January of this year. How do these changes affect us a consumers? This article will present the changes in the City of Madison’s recycling program as well as the re-use and recycling efforts made here at the Co-op. It will also present more examples and set forth ideas for more change from all of us.

Madison gets ready
This September marks the start of a new era in the city’s recycling program. This new program will change the method of collection. George P. Dreckmann, the Recycling Coordinator of the City of Madison, explained that the Madison Pride plastic bags are no longer needed. The city will provide each household a large green cart that will store #1-7 plastic bottles along with #2 and #5 dairy tubs as there are recycling markets for all of them. There are no markets for deli clam shells, styrene (#6 plastic), or #1 frozen dinner plates. There are markets for the #4 LLDPE bags (plastic grocery bags), but they are not taking them because they jam up the sorting equipment. The pick-up of mixed paper, cereal boxes, junk mail, and pizza boxes will divert an estimated 5,000 tons of material from the landfill and result in thousands of fewer trees being harvested for paper. A shift from manual recycling to automated collection will decrease pick-ups to twice a month, instead of weekly. Overall, the ease in the use of the carts will decrease what ends up in the landfill. For more info please visit: http://webapp.cityofmadison.com/streets/index.html.

Awareness comes and goes
Reduce/reuse was drilled into me during the 1970s oil/energy crisis and the Carter administration’s push to teach children at a very young age to conserve. I learned to write on both sides of paper, turn off lights, and recycle through mandatory practices at school and neighborhood paper drives. The current movement away from global food production and distribution back to local is a positive change witnessed daily at the Co-op and in our neighborhoods. The increase in the farmers’ markets is proof of this trend. People want fresh, organic food. This local sustainable movement keeps me hopeful. So do the shoppers that proudly carry their goods with care. A glance around the store shows people shopping with care simply with the re-use of containers and the use of cloth bags.

Store efforts toward waste reduction
The “Earth Tub” is located in the back of the store facing Jenifer Street. It is a compost machine that has been mentioned before in the Reader. Green waste and other compost materials, all within the guidelines for organic matter, are collected from the store and are composted and made available for the neighborhood. There are also the compost research efforts of Dan Moore, Deli Manager. He is revisiting the option of corn-based biodegradable packaging. At this year’s Wisconsin Renewable Energy Fair, members there made great strides in waste diversion and education. They used and displayed plastics made from corn (See http://nat-ur.com/). It sounds great to use plastic that composts. When I told Dan Moore about the usage at the Fair he asked me difficult questions not presented at the energy fair. Is the corn it’s made with GMO corn? Who owns NAT-UR? As he put it, “I ask the questions our members would ask.”

Shot glasses and blue plates
There are a few habit-forming methods of reduction already in place. The Juice Bar offers shots of fresh, local sprouted wheatgrass in a sterilized shot glass. When eating in the Commons or outside, please use the sanitized blue plates and blue or white bowls from the Deli, instead of the plastic to-go containers. There are a lot of salads eaten here with containers that end up in the trash (they are not, as we once thought, recyclable).

Global movement seen local
Finally, many Willy Street Co-op shoppers travel the world or have lived in cultures that still practice traditional means of food storage and transport. It would be great to see more methods and ideas brought back to us. Unfortunately, with the health code standards in this country and specifically in this city, only a few translate here. Yet, thankfully, beautiful, sturdy baskets with handles (from France or Chile) are carried around the store and filled with fresh produce—a work of art on the part of the thoughtful shoppers. Travels to Thailand, for instance, revealed (understand that there are many other countries with this practice) the use of a pinto, a stacked food container, to load food-stand lunches or dinners to take home. I dreamed of introducing this to the Deli, or restaurants around town. It is an impossible act. More extreme measures include a plastic bag tax in Ireland (http://www.bpf.co.uk/bpfissues/plastic_bag_tax.cfm). Australia and India also have banned the use of plastic bags in supermarkets altogether, and cloth bags are used instead. Back to local: Willy Street Co-op has a history of consciousness in consuming, and I am grateful to those active individuals that teach conservation each time they shop. Just because we CAN recycle more does not mean our consumption will increase.