At one of our zero waste presentations recently, someone brought up the point that many recycling trucks are driving around filled mostly with air: the air that’s trapped in all the tins and plastic bottles.
The image of a truck to driving around with a load of what amounts to mostly empty space is pretty powerful, and that simple comment hit home! I always rinse containers out, and I like to think I’m a superstar recycler, but I’ll admit that I don’t always flatten my cans.
It reminded me of this old Ridge Meadows Recycling campaign where they photographed community members from kids to local firefighters to the Mayor demonstrating how to “do the stomp”.
Photo credit Ridge Meadows Recycling http://rmrecycling.org/
So here’s my new pledge: I’ll be taking an extra 30 seconds wash and squash the stompables in my recycling bin from now on. Hopefully with us all doing it, our recycling trucks will save one or two extra trips.
PS – I love the detailed stomping photos at the bottom of the image
The Clean Bin Project Blog 