Collection corner

The better bag

Two Los Angeles-based dry cleaners have joined 1,000 other companies that have switched out plastic and paper packaging for a reusable dry cleaning garment bag. The Green Garmento is made of polypropylene (PP) and is a breathable combination laundry bag, duffle bag and hanging garment bag that eliminates the need for single-use paper and plastic packaging for dry cleaners.

Flair Cleaners owner Gary Futterman says 10 percent of his company’s customers use the reusable packaging option, decreasing Fair Cleaners use of plastic bags and paper hanger covers by more than 4 tons in 2013 alone.

Brentwood Royal completely eliminated its use of single-use packaging for the Green Garmento bags, and owner Bobby Smerling says the company has saved more than 3,000 pounds of paper and plastic in just eight weeks.

For more information on the Better Bag, visit https://thegreengarmento.com.
 

Cadets can

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy collected nearly 90,000 aluminum cans to take top honors in an inter-academy recycling contest sponsored by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), the Washington-based national trade association of the metal can manufacturing industry. The Great American Can RoundUp’s (GACR) first Commander-in-Chief’s Challenge collected more than 163,200 cans for recycling during the four-month competition that ran from Nov. 15 (America Recycles Day) to March 15.

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy collected 89,000 aluminum used beverage cans (UBCs), equating to almost 1 pound per cadet, while the U.S. Military Academy diverted nearly 74,200 UBCs from landfill.

The CMI says the GACR spreads awareness of the environmental benefits of recycling aluminum cans.

For more information, visit www.cancentral.com.
 

Waste in focus

Americans send, on average, about half of their waste to landfill. To highlight this fact and raise awareness of how much waste some households produce, the Glad Products Co. sponsored award-winning photojournalist Peter Menzel and writer Faith D’Aluisio’s latest photo series, “Waste in Focus,” which takes a moment-in-time look at what eight U.S. families around the country are recycling, composting and sending to landfill.

The images show the families of four surrounded by one week’s worth of household trash and recycling, separated respectively. The families, and ultimately the public, can observe how much of their day-to-day household waste is recycled versus sent to landfill.

Menzel says, “Faith and I have wanted to visually tell a story about waste in our consumer society for many years, and we were intrigued when Glad came to us with an offer to sponsor this public service campaign. This is a great way to start a conversation about trash literacy and how the U.S. can better handle its waste.”

For more information, visit www.wasteinfocus.com.

Do you have a unique recycling-focused story? Please send a press release to Megan Workman at mworkman@gie.net.