In the fall, when autumn brings a chill to the air, and Salt Lake’s oaks and elms and other deciduous trees drop their leaves, many of us turn on the blowers, haul out the rakes, and get ready for some serious work.
But—have you considered an alternative? Using some or all of your leaves to mulch your yard or garden? Continue reading
by Terra Pace
In Salt Lake City, we’re proud to offer curbside compost collection for residents. That means those brown bins can take more than just leaves and twigs– they can take your fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, and coffee grounds.
However, food waste is still a big problem. In the U.S. nearly 40% of the nation’s food supply is thrown out, and according to the EPA, 20% of what goes to municipal landfills is food waste.
While compost operations can handle raw fruit and vegetable scraps, a missing piece of the food waste puzzle– particularly for large operations– is what to do with prepared products. This includes cooked foods, packaged foods, meat, cheese, and leftovers from someone’s dinner plate.
Enter Wasatch Resource Recovery.
Slated for operation in fall of 2018, the company will open an “anaerobic digester” that will be able to turn organic waste– including fats, oils, and grease– into sustainable resources –– biogas and bio-based fertilizer. This project, which will help to greatly reduce the amount of food going to our landfill, will also generate energy.
There will be (mostly) normal** curbside waste collection on Monday, Pioneer Day, for the majority of the city. The normal curbside schedule will also be in effect the remainder of the week.
**However, if you live in the vicinity of the Pioneer Day Parade route, your collection may be delayed.
SLC’s Waste & Recycling Division has contacted a small number of residents who will have a delayed collection as a result of the Pioneer Day activities. If you did not receive a notice, your curbside collection will remain the same.
Areas in yellow, below, will not have curbside service on Monday. It will be delayed and collected on Tuesday, July 25th.
Yellow area: pickup delayed to July 25.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation as we strive to provide the safest and highest quality service to our residents.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at 801-535-6999.
by Brooke Taylor
As our readers know, one of SLCgreen’s core goals is to help you adopt tips and practices to make your life more sustainable. Whether that’s reducing your contribution to air pollution, learning how to eat more local food, or understanding what to recycle, all of us have a role to play in making Salt Lake City a more sustainable place to live.
That goes for our own operations as well. One of the major areas of focus for SLCgreen (as the City’s Sustainability Department is known) is helping SLC Corporation adopt best practices when it comes to those same sustainability measures we ask of our community.
That’s why we’re delighted to share with you some elements of our new internal Sustainability Policy, signed in January 2017 by Mayor Biskupski.
This policy affects Salt Lake City’s approximately 3,000 government employees, the community as a whole, our vendors, and the supply chains emanating from those vendors. By vowing to practice the best sustainable methods in all operations from prohibiting Styrofoam cups in break rooms, to carefully tracking our buildings’ energy usage, SLC is setting a community standard—a green standard.
We’d like to note that many of the guidelines in the Sustainability Policy were already in effect through various executive orders and policies, but this is the first time the best practices have been consolidated and turned into a comprehensive document.
If you’d like to read the whole policy, you can find it here.
Otherwise, read on for highlights . . . Continue reading
by Maggie McCormick
The 12-month program promoting sustainability education and action for city employees, Empower SLC, has come to an end. After 12 themes and nearly 50 weekly topics, we hope the lessons learned will help SLC Corp employees adopt more sustainable practices into their everyday lives.
Empower SLC, which began in April 2016, was designed as a training platform by Sustain3 and implemented by the Sustainability Department for Salt Lake City’s nearly 3,000 employees. Our goal was to encourage sustainable practices amongst city staff. Each month, employees participated in monthly themes, such as waste reduction, energy conservation, water conservation, and clean air transportation, and completed weekly lessons and activities.
Normal curbside waste collection in SLC on Monday, May 29, and for the remainder of the week.
Ever wonder how Salt Lake City successfully diverts over 32,000 tons of material annually from the landfill?
It’s a big undertaking– involving operations, education, outreach, and policy. And our amazing staff are at the heart of it!
Today we’re thrilled to announce that one of our own, Mitch Davis, is being recognized nationally for his efforts by Waste360, a recycling trade group serving 90,000 professionals.
The Waste360 “40 Under 40” awards program “recognizes inspiring and innovative professionals under the age of 40 whose work in waste, recycling and organics have made a significant contribution to the industry.“
“This award is a great honor in the waste & recycling industry,” said Lance Allen, Waste & Recycling Division Director. “We are very proud of Mitch and what he brings to our team and community.”
Mitch started his career with Salt Lake City as an intern in 2008 while finishing up his degree in Environmental Studies at the University of Utah. His passion for waste diversion and public service has been the driving force behind the success of many of our waste diversion strategies ever since.
When Mitch started with Salt Lake City he wanted to, “make a difference.” Because of his hard work and dedication, he most certainly has achieved that goal! Here’s how: Continue reading
With the closing of the Shopko store in Sugarhouse and new construction occurring, that glass drop-off location is now CLOSED. Please see the map above for the Fairmont Park location just 1-block away.
As always, you can find information about Glass Recycling in Salt Lake City at our website SLCgreen.com as well as utah.momentumrecycling.com.
Thanks for recycling!
It’s Earth Week!
Each day this week SLCgreen will post different tips and activities to challenge you to reduce your impact on the Earth.
To build off our waste theme, today we are looking at some common recycling mistakes.
Below is a list of common recycling errors and how to fix them.
Each day this week SLCgreen will post different tips and activities to challenge you to reduce your impact on the Earth.
Today we’re focusing on one of the most commonly asked questions: What to do with plastic bags?
Did you know that you shouldn’t bag your recyclables?
In fact, you should avoid putting plastic bags and garbage bags in your residential recycling bin entirely.
Plastic bags hinder the recycling process by:
Watch this video by DNA Info Chicago to see how plastic bags can interrupt recycling machines on a daily basis:
So what should you do? Continue reading
