In celebration of National Recycling Day, Casella Waste Systems, Inc. launched the latest in a series of videos aimed at educating the public on the importance of recycling as part of an integrated resource management system that enables a circular economy, while maintaining economic and environmentally sustainable business practices. “As a leader in recycling processing, we continue to invest in technology and infrastructure to make recycling easier for consumers, to improve separation of materials and the quality of recycled commodities to be used in new products and increase the volume of recyclables we can collect and process,” said Casella Chairman and CEO John W. Casella. “In 2019 our operations were responsible for managing more than 1 million tons of waste material out of the disposal stream and we have set an ambitious target in our recent 2020 Sustainability Report to double that annual effort over the next decade. We plan to continue to do our part to educate the public, and that’s a big reason why we started developing these videos.”
The production features interviews with John Casella, recycling operations experts Joe Soulia and Tim Langlois from Casella, and Dr. Joseph Hall, a clinical professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. Dr. Hall, who is an expert in operations strategy and service operations management, is a strong advocate for economic sustainability in recycling and has used Casella’s recycling facilities for hands on learning opportunities.
National Recycling Day began in 1997 as a national holiday established by the National Recycling Coalition and falls on November 15 every year. This year, it also coincides with the start of Maine Recycles Week, which is coming back for the first time in over a decade, thanks in part to contributions from Casella and other recyclers in Maine.
“’Reduce, reuse, and recycle’ has been around a long time, and unfortunately we sometimes lose site of the most basic efforts to keep recycling sustainable both economically and environmentally,” Casella said. “Efforts like this video, National Recycling Day, Maine Recycles Week, and our ongoing Recycle Better campaign are all excellent reminders that recycling keeps evolving and is still the best way to put our waste to a higher and better use.”