This year marked the 10th annual America Recycles Day - which was on Nov. 15 - an anniversary that falls in the midst of national debate about how our country can most effectively respond to the fast-approaching crisis of global warming.
Although a majority of Americans now believe recycling is very important, many do not yet appreciate the major role it can play in combating the worst effects of climate change.
The fact is that a dramatic increase in recycling can provide all of us with a simple but meaningful way of placing our homes, our cars and our lifestyles on the front line of climate change solutions - solutions that can play a role in protecting the small, fragile planet we all share.
The National Recycling Coalition strongly believes that emerging legislation to combat climate change provides a singular opportunity to re-energize the public's commitment to recycling by education, and, more important, by much-needed investment in our recycling infrastructure.
Just think: A bottle used today can be recycled to recreate a bottle for use tomorrow. With each step forward in recycling, we have more materials that can be reused - thereby avoiding the significant greenhouse gas emissions created by harvesting virgin materials and dealing with their disposal in landfills and waste combustors.
Happily, we can build this new initiative on a growing foundation of good news. Over the past few decades, the U.S. recycling rate has grown from single digits to more than 30 percent - annually salvaging 82 million tons of reusable materials such as paper, plastic, aluminum, steel, glass, yard waste and computers.
That's the equivalent of removing the carbon emissions of 39.4 million passenger vehicles from the road each year. Recycling all of our 251 million tons of trash obviously is even better - offsetting the carbon emissions of more than 120 million vehicles.
American businesses also are increasingly demonstrating environmental leadership. Consider just a few recent examples:
* Coca-Cola is investing $60 million in recycling initiatives in the United States with the goal of recycling and reusing all the plastic in its beverage containers.
* Waste Management Inc. plans to increase the volume of recycled materials it processes from 8 million to 20 million tons per year over the next dozen years.
* Office supplier Staples Inc. is offering recycling for computers and monitors at all of its 1,400 stores.
* Computer maker Dell Inc. offers free recycling of any of its used products for recycling.
Yet much more remains to be done. The new numbers on recycling released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are sobering indeed. They show a disturbing trend: In recent years, the growth of recycling has slowed, with the recycling rates of some key materials and products flattening or declining.
Between 1990 and 2000, recycling volumes and rates rose about 10 percent annually. Yet from 2000 through 2005, the growth rates tapered off to a meager 1 percent to 2 percent a year. And last year they did not grow at all.
The reality is that most of the 80 percent of Americans who recycle do so only on an occasional basis. These "sometimes recyclers" view the many benefits of recycling as too abstract. While they may have a vague notion of saving a tree or doing the right thing for the environment - they often get little or no emotional reward for the effort. When you recycle on a daily basis your emotional reward comes from not just feeling good about your actions, but knowing you are setting an example that will motivate others to recycle as well.
With all America's wealth and ingenuity, we should be the recycling model for the world. Higher recycling rates of 50 percent and even 80 percent are achievable and can lead us quickly to the nirvana of Zero Waste. It is hoped the omnibus climate change legislation now moving through Congress will be the catalyst for a renewed national pledge to move from a disposable nation to the world's first sustainable one.
Many of the current climate change proposals, including the sweeping bipartisan Senate bill sponsored by Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman and Virginia's John Warner, will launch a multi-pronged assault on global warming. Missing in all of the legislation, however, is any recognition of the value of recycling in combating global warming.
One vital addition: enabling legislation that allows the private and public sectors to work together on jointly funded local projects. Communities and industries that develop new recycling projects should have the incentive of participating in a cap-and-trade program. Tax policy should provide tax credits and other carrots for processors to modernize and expand infrastructure. Manufacturers should be motivated to optimize the use of recycled materials in their products.
It is only fitting after a decade of celebrating America Recycles Day that the value of recycling in a carbon-constrained world be fully recognized, realized and enhanced for all Americans. That alone would be a giant step forward in changing the climate.
Krebs is the executive director of the National Recycling Coalition Inc. ( www.nrc-recycle.org).