Earlier this summer when we were talking about having a month of recycling we were trying to estimate what the response would be to the program. "Everyone in this town recycles already (big assumption, but probably a little true) why would we ask people to recycle here?"
We figured out if you lure people with free stuff that they'll bring in their 'trash' and it worked! We guessed that we might get 100-200 vitamin bottles to recycle, enough to make a fifteen pound difference in a landfill. We were happy with that number. Besides, we really just wanted a good Virgo theme for our department for late summer. :) Encouraging others to continue to recycle seemed like a good idea. However, the response was incredible! We received over 500 bottles in a short four weeks during the program. In addition to the vitamin bottles, we received pallet sized piles of #5 plastic (yogurt containers, prescription bottles etc) which were previously unrecyclable in North Carolina. Greenlife has teamed up with Preserve, a company that uses recyclable materials to create new products (razors, toothbrushes, picnic tableware etc) in recycling #5 plastic. The public is able to have a convenient space to drop off their empty containers, Greenlife then sends the containers to Preserve, Preserve reuses the plastic to make sustainable products for the public! Overall, Greenlife had a lot of valuable trash in our "backyard" that ended up in sustainable hands rather than go to a landfill or a floating ocean island of trash. Now as for all of those Sigg bottles...
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