Tag: Recycling

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Expired Milk 100% Recycled

Expired Milk 100% Recycled

Resiliency Means Not Letting Anything Go to Waste
How Reinford Farms Turns Waste Into Energy

At Rubicon®, we believe it is important to highlight every aspect of our work, from the men and women who manage our waste and recycling, to our customers as they take the lead in the fight against COVID-19, to our city partners as they tackle the war on waste.

Last year, shortly before launching a line of perishable food products, a large national variety store chain approached us wanting to learn more about our organics recycling offerings. Up to that point, Rubicon had primarily worked with the customer on plastics, paper, and cardboard recycling. But the retailer understood that selling fresh food would present a different challenge. 

Prior to launching their line of perishable food products, the discount chain had only been selling packaged food. Their distributors would drop-ship the food items to them and take away expired product. After launching, the company became responsible for doing something with their expired products, including expired milk—a special challenge.

By: Ryan Cooper, Waste Diversion Manager and Organics Recycling Lead July 23, 2020

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Recycling in San-Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — How do you throw away a cup of coffee in San Francisco? You take the lid off and put it in the recycle bin. The soiled cup goes in the compost bin. Nothing goes to a landfill. That’s the law.

San Francisco residents pay less per month for their recycle and compost bins than they do for their landfill bins. It’s a financial incentive to encourage participation.

  • San Francisco Department of the Environment creates policy, develops outreach and education programs and deals with policy compliance.
  • San Francisco Department of Public Works oversees the residential refuse rate.
  • Recology is a privately owned company that contracts with the city to haul garbage. It has a monopoly on San Francisco garbage collection as it holds all the permits issued by the City’s Refuse Collection and Disposal Ordinance of 1932.

“A lot of city governments have contentious relationships with their haulers,” said Julie Bryant, a zero-waste coordinator for the city. “We know we can try and experiment with a lot of things because Recology is going to be here for a long time. The partnership with them is one of the keys to our success.”

The Valley has a more competitive market, with several big-name waste haulers such as Waste Management and Republic Services operating side by side.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/dining/food-waste/2017/08/03/san-francisco-mandatory-composting-law-turns-food-waste-money/440879001/

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Sustainability

This is the time to look back and rewind our lives. This is the time to rest and to breath. We have all this time to figure out how to move forward to sustain this world. Nature forces us to stop and to look back. Nature is trying to tell us to look for solutions to get back to the good life. These current virus crisis teaches us a huge lesson; we have to turn around 180° from the direction we were going. This is not just one country, this is the whole world that was moving too fast going where?

Competition is overrated. It wears us out; it kills our spirits; it leaves us empty and disappointed. When the message is “sustain this planet to survive” there is no place for competition. We have to rethink our mission statements and purposes in order to move forward to survive and prosper. Businesses that are based solely on competition will fail drastically one by one. Reputation is so important right now more than ever before. Today’s investors are very intelligent people they are reading, looking, thinking before they invest in companies.

Goodwill, professionalism, high spirits, compassion, intelligence, and education will move this planet forward to the great horizons. This is the time to pause; to breath; to look around and to become more compassionate, kind, and giving.

All businesses, especially corporations have to look closely at their sustainability and environmental protection programs to ensure they are for real and produce results. The next generation of investors will be looking at the companies’ sustainability and environmental protection programs closely because all these investors have children and they want to live in the clean and prosperous planet that is free of infections, disasters, and fears.

The good news is it is not too late to turn 180° around! We still have our planet breathing, struggling, wanting to help us to live and to love.