Global Recycling Day website launches

The countdown has started for a new international awareness day taking place March 18, 2018, that is dedicated to securing the future of the planet through recycling.

The initiative was kicked off at the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling’s (BIR’s) 2017 World Recycling Convention in New Delhi Oct. 16, 2017, with the launch of the Global Recycling Day website, www.globalrecyclingday.com, and of social media channels Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn by Ranjit Baxi, president of the BIR.

The first ever Global Recycling Day will highlight the need to conserve water, air, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals and celebrate the power of the newly termed “seventh resource,” the goods we recycle every day. The new initiative is the brainchild of Baxi, who announced his vision for a day dedicated to recycling at the inauguration of his presidency at the BIR’s 2015 Dubai, United Aram Emirates, convention.

The day encourages people to think again about what is thrown away, seeing not waste but opportunity. 

Global Recycling Day will be a day focused on action aimed at a global approach toward recycling and calling on world leaders, international businesses, communities and individuals to make seven clear commitments in their approach to recycling, BIR says.

These commitments are:

• focusing on international legislation and agreements;
• boosting free and fair trade of recycling materials across the globe;
• educating, from the grassroots up, the public on the critical necessity of recycling;
• agreeing to a common language of recycling;
• making recycling a community issue, supporting schemes and initiatives which help households and businesses provide seventh resource materials for repurposing;
• working with the industry to encourage design for recycling in the repurposing of materials, reducing waste and integrating end-of-life planning at design stage; and
• supporting innovation, research and initiatives that foster better recycling practices and technology.

The biggest mission of Global Recycling Day is to make the world focus on recycling for 24 hours and for people to change at least one habit, BIR says.

Baxi says, “Primary resources, as we all know, are finite.  It is our collective duty, across the globe, to preserve, respect and make the best use of virgin resources.

“Climate Change is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security and other dimensions. It is therefore imperative to promote a sustainable solution which will turn this challenge into an opportunity.”

The Global Recycling Day website has three key messages: learn, sign and do. Visitors to the site will can learn about the recycling industry, how to support recycling initiatives at a personal and community level and more about the seventh resource; sign a petition at change.org to show world leaders the change that is needed to make recycling a truly global concern and do by joining in the day of action on March 18 and sharing good practice on social media.