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The Paper Chase: Can you recycle another pound?

Print | Comments () Posted by Beth Daley November 21, 2008 02:02 PM

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There has been an enormous amount of academic study around recycling: Who recycles, what motivates people – even how best to use psychology to stimulate “pro-recycling” behavior.

Yet we all know one key factor involved in the lack of recycling: Laziness.

The new paper recycling: Cookie boxes, paper clips and glossy magazines (Globe photo)

I regularly see empty blue bins at work and in stores. And often, the waste basket next to the bin has paper in it. It's not that I'm guilt free: I sometimes (and this is tough for an environmental reporter to admit to) throw junk mail and other loose papers into the garbage – especially if there isn’t a paper bag in the house at the time to place the small pieces of paper. (My lame excuse? I don't have paper bags because I use reusable bags these days).

Now, MassRecycle, a coalition aimed at increasing recycling rates, is trying to get more paper into the blue bins. They don’t use the word lazy as a reason for a lack of recycling, they use the word confused: They say many people probably don't realize how much paper they can recycle these days. Glossy magazines and envelopes are fine. Don’t worry about staples and paper clips and throw the Cheerios box in too.

The group just launched an ambitious campaign to get Massachusetts residents to recycle one million more tons of paper annual. It’s a lofty goal – in 2006 we generated three million tons of paper waste and recycled about 1.4 million tons of it, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

“It’s really the low hanging fruit,’’ says Molly Fraust, MassRecycle's paper campaign director. “Traditionally, it’s been very hard to recycle paper correctly.”

You’ll likely start seeing the ads in theaters in coming weeks, in The Metro and 100 Community Newspapers publications, paid for by Covanta Energy, the Massachusetts State Lottery and Got Books! The group has also gotten 175 communities – and looking for more – to pledge to take recycling more seriously than they have in the past.

We need more people doing this (Globe photo)

The group points to a 2000 Northeast Recycling council report that notes recycling supports more than 1,400 businesses and 19,000 jobs and generates about $64 million in state tax revenues.

Add to that the interesting tidbit that much of our paper and cardboard is remanufactured right in Massachusetts into corrugated cardboard at Rand-Whitney in Worcester and into cereal boxes, book covers (including the last Harry Potter book), game boards at the Newark Group’s Fitchburg plant.

And if somehow you’ve forgotten why we recycle, well, one reason is it saves the paper from clogging landfills. If state residents and businesses actually recycled more than one million pounds of paper, MassRecycle officials say, Massachusetts would reduce 3 million tons of greenhouse gases and reduce energy needs by the equivalent of 3.8 million barrels of oil. If you are looking for more info, go to MassRecyclesPaper.org.

Sometimes we all get lazy. But the new campaign just may give us all a good kick to recycle a few more pounds of paper.

tags climate change, jobs, lazy, massrecycle, paper, psychology, recycles