Recycling Advocates E-Newsletter

November 2018 | www.recyclingadvocates.org | info@recyclingadvocates.org

Engaging people in creating a sustainable future through local efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Our thanks to everyone who attended our annual meeting last month, what a great evening!  Special thanks to our awesome speakers for sharing their inspiring success stories: 

• Jules Bailey of OBRC described how Oregon's statewide Bottle Refill program is taking off, with more and more craft breweries interested in participating, choosing to distribute their beer in bottles designed to be washed and refilled instead of crushed and recycled. Read more about the program here.  
• Kirk Mustain from Bon Appetit at UP described the bold steps he has taken to remove disposable containers and utensils from the university's campus food service, he drew rounds of applause from listeners when he talked about Bon Appetit's sustainable purchasing practices and community partnerships aimed at ensuring that food does not go to waste.  

In 1987, Jeanne Roy led the beginning of Recycling Advocates with a small group of like-minded friends. Thirty-one years later she and her husband retired from their many nonprofit organizations. During this 3-decade span, the two of them created 11 other organizations and initiatives focused on teaching, leading and celebrating sustainability in Oregon.

Jeanne started Recycling Advocates to inform and educate our fellow Portlanders. This was at a time before we had curbside recycling. Five years later, we had a more structured recycling and waste collection system, thanks to her dedication.

She held monthly Recycling Advocates meetings with invited speakers covering a variety of current topics. She recruited a lot of volunteers, myself included, to work on projects of our choosing or to contribute to ongoing projects. She recruited board members and held the monthly board of directors’ meetings in her home. The creation, printing and mailing of a monthly newsletter was all Jeanne’s idea. These monthly printings covered the latest hot topics, reviewed the previous meeting’s presentations, and invited folks to the next meeting.

In 1992 Jeanne co-created the Master Recycler Program in the Portland Metro region. After initial establishment, she transferred the program to the City of Portland. This successful program continues to provide training to 90 people per year.

[Read More...]

• How our garbage and recycling system impacts the environment, both locally and globally, and throughout the life of the products we make, use and throw away
• How it impacts human health, including chemicals in products that pose a danger
• How its inequitable distribution of services, benefits and impacts harm communities of color and others in our region.