Kadena celebrates America Recycles Day

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Maeson L. Elleman
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  More and more, Americans are making movements to increase recycling efforts.

Since just before the turn of the 21st century, Nov. 15 has been dubbed America Recycles Day in support of landfill-diversion, and this year Kadena Air Base is hopping on board to support "going green" in the local community.

The Kadena Recycling Program will teach elementary school students about recycling during the week and will have a booth at the local Exchange to further educate the base on the importance of reusing valuable resources.

Only 25 percent of all American households actively recycle. In 2009, Americans generated nearly 243 million tons of trash, 61 million tons of which was recycled and an additional 21 million tons composted, resulting in only one-third of materials being diverted from landfills.

As part of Earth Week 2011 and for the second consecutive year, Kadena Air Base did its part by giving away 10,000 reusable shopping bags at the Commissary and Exchange. Every customer automatically had their purchases placed in one reusable bag (traditional bags were used for additional items).

Michelle Walton, 718th Civil Engineer Squadron solid waste manager, said promoting use of reusable bags helps base personnel and military family housing residents to reduce (fewer plastic bags needed), reuse (tote bags can be used again and again), and recycle (the bags are made of recycled materials and are recyclable) simultaneously. The Kadena Recycling Program purchased the bags with revenue generated from the sale of recyclables. 

Every bit of recycling by each person helps, too. The Environmental Protection Agency has created a spreadsheet called the individual Waste Reduction Model, or iWARM, for consumers to help them understand the energy saved by recycling small quantities of common household products, rather than sending them to a landfill.. The model is located at http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/tools/iwarm/index.htm.

Here are some examples from iWARM of what individual recycling efforts can do to help make our country more sustainable:

· If every household in America reused a paper bag for groceries at least one shopping trip, 60,000 trees would be saved.
· Every ton of mixed office paper recycled saves 380 gallons of oil.
· Recycling just one ton of aluminum cans conserves more than 1,665 gallons of gasoline.
· More than 150 million cell phones are sitting unused in homes and offices waiting for recycling. If just one million of these phones were recycled, enough electricity would be saved to power almost 2,000 homes for a year.
· Recycling one aluminum can will save enough energy to run a television for three hours, and if the TV is an LCD or LED model, it would be powered for even longer.
· Recycling just seven 20-oz. plastic bottles could allow a ceiling fan to continuously run for 7.4 hours.
· A 60-watt light bulb can be run for almost 10 hours on the amount of energy saved by recycling one daily newspaper. This increases to 45 hours for a 60-watt compact fluorescent bulb.
· Recycling one gallon-size plastic milk jug can save enough energy to run your clothes washing machine for more than an hour - more than enough for a full load of clothes.

Service members and their families can do their part by making sure Kadena Air Base is fulfilling its mission in saving precious resources and economic viability by doing something small and simple like recycling or increasing the amount of recycling. To learn more about "America Recycles Day," contact Michelle Walton at 634-2600 or michelle.walton@kadena.af.mil or visit www.facebook.com/KadenaRecyclingProgram and ask them about how to help.

The Air Force is dedicated to protecting and respecting the natural resources of our country and our world. As part of the service's ongoing Win the War Against Waste campaign, an initiative to reduce solid waste, active duty members, civilian employees and their family members are encouraged to WWAW on Nov. 15 by renewing their commitment to recycling.

Participants can make a pledge today for America Recycles Day at http://americarecyclesday.org or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AmericaRecyclesDay.

Information from an Air Force Center of Engineering and the Environment article was used in this story.