Austin Adopts Zero Waste Plan

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:25:46 +0000

The city of Austin is the first city in the state of Texas to adopt a zero waste plan. What does that mean?According to Jessica King, sustainability administrator for the City of Austin’s Solid Waste Services Department, …it is no longer a ’waste’. We call it a commodity now…a different way of thought on how we look at trash”. The city transitioned in October to single stream recycling (allowing users to put all recyclable materials into one big “blue” bin) for twice monthly pick-up and the number of tons of recycling collected has already doubled! According to the Solid Waste Services dept, nearly 80% of residents of Austin are now participating. The city hopes to reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill by 20% by 2012. Can it work? The city has only to look at San Francisco where 90% of their trash is diverted from the local landfills and know that yes, we can do it, too! So get that big blue bin, and rinse out those cans, bottles, plastic trays, and containers..Do it for your city, your children, and for the planet. Make it a family Earth Day project to see how much difference you can make in your household. We did and it is amazing to see how little we actually put in our “normal” dumpster. We are down to one bag per week and are working on eliminating that, too. Our big blue bin is overflowing and we look forward to the day when the weekly pick-up is for the big blue and the twice monthly or less for the “trash”. Until then, happy recycling!

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Austin Adopts Zero Waste Plan