Wednesday is America Recycles Day across the nation.
It's a day promoters use to talk about saving money and the environment at the same time. Karen Sieg is Executive Director of the Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin, an association representing Wisconsin's recycling, waste reduction and sustainability professionals. She says the day is intended to remind the public what they can recycle and the best way to do that. When Wisconsin's law passed in 1990, 17 percent of municipal solid waste was recycled. By 2004, studies showed the percentage had climbed to 32 percent.
Sieg says the way recycling is done has also changed...
"...when that passed some were doing a collection where you had to seperate everything or maybe a dual stream, where you put papers in one area and containers in another. More and more across Wisconsin it's one stream, where you can mix all your recyclables together..."
Sieg says in some areas compliance levels need to be improved...
".....we also want people to know that these materials are valuable. They are used for seed stock for new products. We want folks to realize this stuff is recycled. It's not landfilled as sometimes folks are concerned about. We want people to feel good about putting these things in and recycling them....."
There's a website where you can get more information about recycling in Wisconsin at recyclemorewisconsin.org
