Talking Trash

In The Waste-Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet (Portfolio, 288 pages), author Ron Gonen asks consumers, businesses, and banks to embrace a circular economy. A circular economy is a model of production and consumption...

Have some back-to-school folks at your house? According to the EPA, on average, each student throws away about 67 pounds of lunch waste per year. That might be more than some young students weigh! This total includes uneaten food and food scraps, as well as...

In the United States, about 40% of all food goes to waste. That wasted food costs a family of four about $1,500 each year! At home, you can reduce your food waste by using the 3 Rs — Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle: Reduce your food waste at home by planning your meals for...

The United States saw a rise in recycling rates for both paper and corrugated cardboard (OCC) in 2021. Paper recycling rates rose from 65.7% in 2020 to 68% in 2021. To put this into more concrete terms, U.S. paper mills accepted more than 8.6 million tons of recycled...

Eco Partners has news to share with you and it's all good! First, we are excited to announce that Eco Partners President Elizabeth Roe was recently elected to the role of Secretary for the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) Board of Directors. "I...

We are halfway through Plastic Free July, a month-long campaign to reduce plastic waste. Have you joined the effort and tried to refuse single-use plastics? If you're looking for a place to start, one challenge you can take this year is to "Up Cup." When you "up cup,"...

Recycling has had a bumpy road the past few years as local programs and recycling processors have adapted to changing overseas markets, faced transportation challenges here in the U.S., dealt with the impacts of a global pandemic on collection and processing, and...

While many textiles, such as sheets, clothing, towels, upholstery, industrial fabric scraps, and most other woven items, can be reused or recycled, they do not belong in your curbside recycling bin or cart! If you want to reuse or recycle textiles, you can find...

Eco Partners President Elizabeth Roe gave the keynote address at SWANA’s Pacific Chapter Northwest Regional Symposium this past April in British Columbia. Under the theme “Winds of Change,” she discussed both the tailwinds and headwinds impacting solid waste...