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Did you know that plastic waste has become a significant global environmental and disposal challenge? Single-use plastics are the largest culprit of our disposable consumer lifestyle.

Globally, 335 million metric tons of plastics was produced in 2016. Half of this was used for single-use products. That means that 17 million barrels of oil was used to make plastic water bottles. To put this into context, this is enough oil to fuel 1 million cars annually.

What are single-use plastics?

‍Single-use plastics, also known as disposable plastics, are materials that are used once before being discarded. These includes plastic items such as grocery bags, water bottles, forks and spoons, food packaging, and more.

What is their impact?

‍Plastics are made from fossil fuels and leave a large carbon footprint. Once plastics are used (sometimes only once), only a small percentage is recycled, and plastics take hundreds of years to disintegrate. Plastics can also cause damage by polluting our oceans, damaging marine animals and birds, leaching toxins into food and drink, and entering our food chain through microplastics and nanoplastics. Plastics now make up 90% of all trash floating on the ocean surface and plastic pieces outnumber sea life 6 to 1. This has caused dead spots with floating garbage in the Mariana and Kermadec trenches of the Pacific Ocean.

‍What are Some Possible Solutions?

‍There are several steps you and your community can take to reduce the usage of single-use plastics. This will include a combination of awareness campaigns and public outreach to increase knowledge on the subject, along with policies to create an incentive for people and businesses to act. Since each municipality is unique, there will be different answers to this issue. Below are some possible solutions.

1. Organize a community event

‍You can work with residents to bring awareness to the impact that plastics have on the environment. There are several events that you may be interested in organizing for your community, including:

• World Oceans Day: On June 8^th, communities around the global will be coming together to protect the ocean by preventing plastic pollution. There are free resources available to plan your event such as cleanups, festivals, lectures or readings. You can also use the #WorldOceansDay hashtag on social media.
• Plastic-Free July: The month of July has been dedicated to raising awareness about single-use disposable plastics and how people can reduce their usage. Millions of people and 159 countries have participated to avoid landfill waste and reduce their eco-footprint. You can join the challenge here and access their free setup toolkit here. Follow them on social media by using the #choosetorefuse hashtag.
• International Coastal Cleanup Day: For the last 30 years, Ocean Conservancy is calling on people to collect and take a note of trash that is ending up on the coastline. This event will be held on September 15th. You can follow on social media and use the #CoastalCleanup hashtag.
• Host A Film Screening: You can also host a short film screening to encourage your residents to begin talking about the impact of plastics. Two films to note include the Bag It Movie and The Story of Bottled Water.

2. Create public education campaigns

‍Develop education campaigns for the general public on how they can reduce their single-use plastic consumption. These campaigns can include posters, banner ads, social media posts and more.

The messaging can focus on conscious consumer choices residents can make to reduce their plastic footprint. Some examples include:

• Bottles: Use a reusable bottle of tap water instead of buying plastic bottled water
• Bags: Bring your own canvas tote bag instead of using plastic grocery bags
• Straws: Say no to plastic straws at restaurants or with your to-go drinks
• Packaging: Purchase food from small stores or bulk food stores instead of using pre-packaged foods

3. Consider plastic policies and the 7Rs

‍San Francisco, CA is an example of a city that has an 80% waste diversion rate. It is the first city in the U.S. to ban plastic bags in 2007 and it also banned harmful styrofoam products such as food packaging and to-go containers last year. Its goal is to become a zero waste city by 2020.

Most consumers are aware of the 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle, but you may also want to consider sharing the 7Rs with your community.

These include:

• Repair: Upgrade or fix materials before disposing them.
• Regift: Share or pass along items to someone else.
• Recover: Upcycle to help recover materials and energy.
• Refuse: Say no to materials or items that you don't need such as plastic straws.

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Share Your Story With Us

‍Does your community run promotional campaigns to help increase awareness around single-use plastics? How effective is it? We'd love to hear from you!

Did you know that we produce 2.1 billion tons of waste annually worldwide? Of this, it's projected that we'll generate 60% more clothing and textile waste by 2030 over 2015. However, we can work together to reduce this type of waste.To get started, we've put together a blog to provide you with a deeper understanding of what textile waste is, what causes it, and learn ways to reduce this type of waste. There are many options available, which means you and your team can select the best option for how to reduce textile waste with your residents and with your local community.

What is textile waste?

‍Textile waste are materials, typically clothing, that have been disposed of as they've been deemed unfit for use. Textiles can include items such as clothing, purses, belts, linens, shoes, drapery, and more.

What is causing an increase textile waste?

‍As consumers, we continue to increase our fast fashion purchases and we're spending less time owning the clothing that we buy to keep up with the most recent fashion trends. Fast fashion is when retailers provide consumers with the latest trends at a lower price and sometimes made with lower quality materials. This leads to us throwing out our clothing at a faster rate than previous generations.In the U.S., textile waste increased to almost 40% from 1999 to 2009 and it's estimated to reach 35 billion pounds by next year. In Canada, it's estimated that 85% of used clothing and textiles go directly to the landfill, even though some people are donating these items to charity to be reused.

‍What can be done to reduce textile waste?

‍The good news is that there are many people and organizations working to reduce textile waste. You can encourage your residents to participate in National Textile Recovery Initiative by:

‍1) Creating Awareness Around Slow Fashion Purchases

‍Instead of buying the latest fashion trends every month or every season, you can encourage residents to consider purchasing higher quality clothing pieces that last longer, also known as 'slow fashion'. This requires a change in consumer behaviour and a lifestyle change to buying clothing and textiles for their quality and longevity. This behaviour is sometimes called 'zero waste fashion'.

‍2) Organizing A Community Clothing Swap‍

You can encourage residents to organize a community event where people can exchange clothing that is gently used and in generally good condition with others. This encourages clothing to be reused and allows people an opportunity to swap items without spending money. When setting up the event, it helps to develop rules on how the clothing swap will work and also have a plan in place on how to donate any remaining items post-event.If your residents are currently in spring cleaning mode, they may also be interested in the #threadcycling trend and how to dispose of textile items.

‍3) Encouraging Clothing Donations

‍Most residents may not be aware that they can donate their old clothing and stained textiles to charities and non-profit organizations. Some communities may have programs where they can schedule clothing to be picked up at the curb or clothing can be dropped off at charity boxes.If clothing is damaged or hasn't been worn before, consumers may still be able to give them to charities or non-profit organizations. They'll determine if the item can be reused / repurposed or if it should be recycled. Unwanted clothing and textiles are sometimes sent to recycling plants. Once at the plant, textiles can be cut and used as industrial rags, ground down and reprocessed, or be declared unusable. As you encourage residents to become more aware of textile waste and fashion recycling, they might have more questions about what items can be disposed or recycled. You can send them to the Recycle Coach app to find out what goes where.

People make a lot of assumptions about today's youth--college and university students in particular. "Millennials are lazy, entitled and self-absorbed," an early Time Magazine article screamed. But the truth is far more complex, and the current college crowd continues to defy the stereotypes.

So, how do college students really feel about recycling?

The good news is that today's young people have grown up with a sense of global awareness about sustainability and the importance of green living. There are also aspects of their collective behaviors that, properly directed, can turn them into leaders for positive, sustainable change. The downside is that students still aren't recycling as much as they should, so we decided to take a look at their overall attitudes to see why this is the case. As it turns out, most of the barriers to recycling for students are much the same as everyone else's. The five key issues inhibiting student recycling are:

1. Education

‍There is both good and bad news regarding current students' awareness of sustainability and environmental concerns. A 2015 study for the Journal of Building Construction and Planning Research discovered that 86.4% of students surveyed had heard of sustainability, though only 35% felt they knew what it really meant. Only about 18% of the survey group felt they had a strong understanding of the concept. The study concluded that while media is bombarding today's students with information about environmental concerns, awareness remains superficial. In other words, they know there's a problem, but they aren't really clear what to do about it.

On the other hand, a 2014 study from the University of Iowa determined that 51% of students in their dataset recycle as much as possible, while only 9% said they don't recycle at all. Among the latter set, the two main reasons cited for not recycling were lack of available space and no available information on how and where to recycle. Taken in tandem, these studies suggest that while awareness and the desire to recycle exist, students need an actionable plan and facilities to help them see programs through. (For similar studies, see also: NIH, U.Guelph.)

2. Inconvenience

‍Like many of us, students won't recycle if they can't find an available recycling bin, if the ones provided are full, or if they lack instructional signage. A 2009 study from the National Institutes of Health found that a lack of available facilities was the number one reason students gave for not recycling regularly, and the same reason ranked number one or two in all of the studies we looked at.

3. Lack of information

‍The other top barrier to campus recycling is a lack of reliable, easily accessible information to tell them what goes where. For students, a lack of instruction affects their daily recycling behavior throughout the school year, but it is a particular concern when they are moving in and moving out. Even students with a strong education in recycling best practices might be at a loss when it comes to disposing of furniture shipping containers when they move in or offloading used mattresses and furniture at the end of the year.

4. Time

‍Students have their work cut out for them. Between juggling school work, social lives, and possibly a job or two, there's simply not enough time in the day to give their recycling behaviors critical thought.

5. Priorities

‍Students entering a college or university environment are often overwhelmed by change and unstructured independence, and the idea of recycling can take a backseat. As they mature as students, they might find themselves under increasing pressure to perform well in class or bowing to social pressures to party, which pushes recycling even further down the priority list.

Dealing with distractions

The one key differentiator between today's incoming college students and older generations is digital noise. As social media natives, young people today consider distraction to be normal. Social media, digital apps, online games, and quizzes all offer a steady stream of personalized information and activities that students juggle alongside their schoolwork and real-world activities. They are also notorious multitaskers to a degree not experienced by their elders. When it comes to recycling, this means municipalities and schools have to work harder to cut through the noise and ensure that recycling remains front of mind.

Running a municipal recycling awareness program is always a challenge. Residents are increasingly difficult to reach due to busy schedules, and accessibility is reduced thanks to the wide range of communication channels they use. Meanwhile, your landfill is beyond capacity and special waste collection events are under-attended.

How to Engage College Students

Granted, working with college students can sound like more trouble than it's worth, but there are several reasons why you should consider developing some initiatives in that area.

First, today's college students are part of the Millennial generation, and while this group is notorious for their short attention spans, they are also famous for banding together en masse to support worthy social causes. What can be more worthy than saving our environment? Also, school administrations can be powerful allies in both the promotion and execution of college or university-based initiatives. By helping to integrate recycling systems into the school's day-to-day operations, colleges and universities can define best practices and set expectations for student compliance.Finally, today's college students will be managing households in the very near future. By setting them up to value and adopt regular recycling habits now, you will continue to see returns over time as they age and influence their spouses, children and neighbors. Some colleges are even expanding their zero waste programs off-campus and becoming thought leaders in the community at large.

Understanding the Millennial Mindset

‍In order to engage your student community, it's important to understand how they operate. One key differentiator between young Millennials and residents in older demographics is the way they utilize technology. The other is their social nature.We've all heard that young Millennials spend a lot of time on their smartphones, and the numbers drive home how pervasive this technology really is. Recent studies show that Millennials prefer texting over talking, are two times more likely to use mobile devices to access the internet for information, and 41% of them have either abandoned the landline or have never had one. Smartphones are so central to their social interactions that four out of five Millennials sleep with or next to their smartphones [Source: Forbes].

As a result, your college outreach strategy must center on mobile. For the most part, this means accessing them via social media. Text messaging is thought to be antiquated, but it is also an option. Apps are another key approach. Downloading an app requires effort (the act of clicking and installing) and desire for the service provided. This act of opting-in results in a powerful psychological connection which, in turn, typically results in high engagement rates. In 2015, college-aged students spent an average of 90.6 hours a month engaging with apps on their smartphones, plus another 34.7 hours each month on a tablet [Source: Business of Apps].

In the same way that their technology revolves around social media, Millennial college culture is also driven by group-centric activities, participation in social causes, and a need to feel like they belong. They were raised to have a can-do attitude, community spirit and believe they can make a difference. These traits make them ideal targets for recycling initiatives.We'll be looking at individual strategy and tactical ideas in later blog posts, but for now, the following checklist will help get you started:

• Use social media: Make sure your promotions have a social media component, and have resources available to respond to questions in a timely manner.
• Be authentic: Millennials do not like to be talked down to, and they are highly sensitive to inauthenticity.
• Don't Speak the Lingo: Unless you are a native Millennial marketer and understand the nuances of their slang, just keep the tone neutral and the language simple.
• Engage the group: Create promotions that encourage students to create their own groups and work together. Not only will this make your programs more effective, but they'll take initiative and build on what you've started.
• Give them the tools they need: And then get out of their way.
• Reward them for good behavior: Millennials like to know when they've done a good job. Appeal to their sense of social justice: Today's students care about the environment and each other. Show them how their activities make the world a better place, explain how to do it, and then watch them run with it.

Given their high levels of sociability, social activism, concern for the environment and accessibility through digital channels, today's college students are a great place to building a widespread recycling awareness program that will last well into their next life-cycles.Watch this space as we delve further into this topic to look at best-practices, tactics and strategies to make this energetic demographic an essential part of your municipal recycling outreach program's success.