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The City of Hazelwood Hosts 3rd Annual Recycle Day Giving Residents a Chance to Make a Difference
In an effort to help divert electronic items and other bulky appliances away from landfills, the City of Hazelwood is hosting its 3rd Annual Recycle Day on Saturday, June, 1, in the parking lot of St. Louis Outlet Mall between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. This event is free; there are no drop-off charges.
Participating vendors for this year’s event include Allied Waste Services, WITS, Inc. (Web Innovations & Technology Services), Shred-It, and St. Louis Outlet Mall. Vendor stations will be set up so drivers can pull up and have their vehicles unloaded or have their personal documents handed off to be shredded.
For this year’s event, there’s a limit of two (2) TVs per vehicle. Other electronic items accepted by WITS include the following: computers; monitors; printers; cords/cables; TVs; VCR/DVD players; stereos/boom boxes; MP3 players; cellular phones; kitchenware like toasters, blenders, and food processors; washers; dryers; dishwashers; refrigerators; furnaces; humidifiers; air conditioners; lawn equipment; industrial machinery; old motors or transformers; medical/diagnostic equipment; glassware/dishes; and clothing items. WITS spokesperson Angela Haas confirms that all hard drive data containing any personal information will be wiped clean and destroyed before the equipment is reused.
Items NOT ACCEPTED by vendors include the following: furniture; mattresses/bedding; alkaline batteries; fluorescent/CFL bulbs; tires; or hazardous materials such as paints, solvents and chemicals.
Both Shred-It and Allied Waste Services will be on-site as well. Shred-It will have two mobile shredding trucks available to help residents destroy their personal documents. With the growing problem of Identity Theft, it’s important for people to find a way to get rid of their bank statements, credit card invoices, and other private papers in a safe, secure manner. Shred-It will provide this confidential service on the spot.
Allied Waste Services will have two dumpsters for people to drop off their single-stream recycling items. The company announced recently that they are now able to accept cartons in their mix of recyclable materials. In addition to the traditional recyclables that can be put in residents’ recycle containers, cartons for milk, juice, soy milk, broth, soup, as well as other foods and beverages can be included.
The bales of recycled cartons are shipped to paper mills, where cartons are mixed with water in a gigantic blender to extract all the paper fiber. These fibers are a valuable resource for making products such as recycled paper and even building materials.
Hazelwood Hosts 3rd Annual Recycle Day, Add One
“We’ve made good progress with our efforts to educate residents about making recycling a part of their everyday lives,” said Mayor Matthew Robinson of Hazelwood. “The tonnage of recyclables collected by Allied on a monthly basis in Hazelwood has remained high. And, for the first two years we hosted a Recycle Day, more than 1,322 vehicles dropped off nearly 159.5 tons of recyclable materials. We anticipate the 2013 event to be the best one yet.”
Recycling has numerous environmental benefits. It conserves our natural resources, saves energy, and reduces air and water population. With the world population exploding exponentially and a finite amount of land where people can live, efforts are being made to reduce the need to add more landfills.
In the U.S., recycling efforts can divert over 60 million tons (32%) of the more than 100 million tons of garbage Americans throw away on a yearly basis, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As more progress is made to choke off the flow of items to landfills, more recycled-content products are being produced to help reduce the consumption of Earth’s raw materials.
Not only is recycling beneficial to the environment, it also supports several sectors of the economy. According to a 2010 Annual Report published by the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District, the recycling industry provides over 16,000 jobs in the St. Louis region and over 25,000 jobs state-wide. Recycling generates tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenues for state and local governments as well.
Recycling is a significant engine for economic growth. It’s important for the City of Hazelwood and other neighboring municipalities to continue investing in recycling in order to maintain the region’s competitiveness in a 21st century global economy.
In 2011, Hazelwood created a Green Committee composed of City Council members, business leaders and resident volunteers. “The group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month at Civic Center East, starting at 5 p.m. Anyone who wishes to share green ideas should consider joining as a member,” said Hazelwood Green Committee chairman Ron Darling.
