The Haines Friends of Recycling will host an Earth Day Zoom conference about ways to reduce waste, save money and extend the life of the landfill.

Friends and Solid Waste Working Group chair Melissa Aronson will detail the “Reduce Our Waste Together” (ROW) document that the working group has been developing for the past several months.

“It has all kinds of ideas how people can reduce waste and what businesses or organizations they can use for that in the Chilkat Valley,” Aronson said. “There will be a couple of activities people can do to set their own goals or do a home or business audit to think about waste reduction practices.”

The 41-page document can be found at hainesrecycle.org.

“In the U.S. we produce the most waste of any country, per capita,” the ROW document states on its first page. “On average, we each produce 12.5 pounds of waste each on a daily basis when we consider the production of materials. From our households, we produce about 4.5 pounds of waste per day per person. Is this the legacy we want to leave future generations? Is there a better way to use our resources?”

The document is designed as a reference guide, not to be read from cover to cover and includes ideas for ways to reduce, reuse, recycle or rot more than 40 types of materials such as printer cartridges, smoke detectors, metals, household waste, glass, fluorescent tubes and books.

The conference is scheduled for April 23 from 6-7 p.m. For more information contact Aronson at [email protected].

Author