I was contacted yesterday with a request to write an article about a relatively new company and I approached the request with equal amounts of skepticism and intrigue! The request was to write about a company that takes used cardboard boxes and sells them back to businesses and the general public at low prices. What I found was an extremely environmentally aware business whose value system is centered around reducing waste and recycling as many cardboard boxes as humanly possible;

“You don’t have to cut down a tree, to make a used cardboard box!”

The founder of the company, Marty Metro, started selling used cardboard boxes in his local neighborhood back in 2002 and he saw the potential for a big business;
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I was recently invited to take a tour of a local Texas recycling center which is operated by the AbitibiBowater’s Recycling Division. Casey Gray is a “Business Recycling Consultant” and he gave me an amazing tour of the AbitibiBowater recycling center in Arlington, Texas. The division that Casey operates the EcoRewards Recycling program and they educate and encourage local Texas businesses to begin recycling as much of their waste as possible.

The AbitibiBowater "Arlington Recycling Operation" Building

I arrived at around 12PM on a sunny Friday afternoon to the AbitibiBowater “Arlington Recycling Operation” building and was immediately impressed with the high level of activity surrounding the recycling center. Trucks were constantly loading and unloading at the centers numerous loading bays.

I had always wanted to see how both domestic and commercial recyclables are processed and my tour of the Arlington facility gave me a fascinating insight into how the recycling process works;

1/ COLLECTING THE RECYCLABLES:

The first stage for any recycled materials is collection. Their are several types of vehicles which perform the recycling collections;

Various Recycling Collection Vehicles

There are three main types of collection vehicles, the Front End Loading (FEL), the Rear End Loading (REL) and the Roll Off type vehicle (RO). You might recognize one or all three types of collection vehicle, try to spot them the next time you take a road trip!

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A brand new recycling center has just opened in McKinney, Texas and it promises to revolutionize recycling in the local area. The IESI McKinney recycling facility is called a Material Recovery Facility and is situated in McKinney near the Collin Airport. The Mckinney recycling facility will be the first privately funded single-stream LEED certified Material Recycling Facility in North America.

New IESI MRF Recycling Center in McKinney

The McKinney recycling center building is fully LEED certified which means the building itself was built to the strictest eco friendly standards;
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of green commercial structures.
The new recycling center also houses a second-floor community room and observation deck overlooking the recycling operations area.

The New IESI MRF Recycling Center, McKinney TX

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I just received my Utility bill today and was first, very happy to see it was much lower than last year due to our efforts at water conservation and also because the bill included a card that described a program that reaches out to young environmentalists. In cooperation with the North Central Texas Council of Governments through funding from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Green Teens is a new program introduced in the Fall of 2008 to reach out to young environmentalists through training and hands-on demonstrations and allow them to educate their peers, as well as their community, on ways to green their lives.

The program includes educational and practical components to facilitate long-term, positive changes in attitudes concerning waste prevention, reduction, reuse, and recycling. The Green Teens go out in the community and ask businesses about their “green” practices and give each of them a set of criteria that will help them reach the goal of a “Green Teens Approved Business” status. The businesses are then placed in tiers based on the number of practices implemented, in our community of North Richland Hills, there are forty businesses and counting that are Green Teen Approved Business!!

A unique aspect of Green Teens includes an innovative, youth-oriented and targeted marketing campaign. Green Teens will provide education by producing an environmental PSA, creating and maintaining a Green Teens web site and MySpace page, and using a weekly “text tree” to provide helpful tips to peers. Additionally, Green Teens will utilize a video-enabled social network to send video emails, create video podcasts, have group video chats, and streaming video.

To learn more about this program go to:

http://www.nrhtx.com/green_teens.aspx

The card lists all the Green Approved Businesses and the Tier level they have attained. One of our favorite places, the Yogurt Patch Frozen Yogurt is in the Top Tier (20+ actions). Great yogurt and very green to boot!

We were recently invited by my wife’s parents, Sharen and Carter, to get fresh frozen yogurt from a local business they had been telling us about for weeks. We tagged along in hope of some delicious dessert and found much, much more! The “Yogurt Patch” sells a variety of low-fat, no-fat and no sugar added fresh frozen yogurt and it’s all delicious but what really impressed my wife and I was that the Yogurt Patch has made an obvious investment in being a green business.  It’s not immediately obvious but eco friendly products are used all throughout the store.

The eagle eyed yogurt buyers will notice a sticker on the door which shows that the business is supported by a local “Green Teens” organization proving that the local community has already recognized the green commitment being made.

The Yogurt Patch owners have truly invested in green options throughout the store, we wish more businesses would make such a green commitment and we’d like to share the experience with you, so here we go… (more…)