Dec 11 - A Plan to Save Recycling
As world leaders debate a strategy to combat climate change, the urgency and opportunity for advancing our Waste Reduction and Recycling Agenda has never been greater. The threat of global climate change has placed a premium on policies with a track record of conserving energy and resources, reducing wasteful consumption, and utilizing recycled materials in manufacturing. At the same time, our state and nation's economic climate has created an urgent need for a 'Green Jobs and Economic Development' initiative. Working with economic and environmental experts, Californians Against Waste has put forward Waste Not, our comprehensive plan for protecting our Environment while helping to create and sustain good green jobs.
Your generous support has enabled Californians Against Waste to lead a "recycling revolution" in California. Today, I'm asking for your continued support as we work with legislators to introduce major recycling proposals for consideration in the upcoming State Legislative session.
What We've Accomplished:
Thanks to your help, Californians now recycle more than 17 billion beverage containers a year under the Bottle Bill that CAW guided to passage. But today that program faces the most severe challenges in its history due to policy maker mismanagement. Fixing this is a top priority.
More than half of all single family residences in California now have convenient curbside pick-up of newspapers, bottles and cans to help them comply with the Solid Waste Recycling Act sponsored by CAW.
CAW led the campaigns to pass the nation's first electronic waste (E-Waste) recycling law and the nation's first cell phone recycling law. These landmark campaigns will result in the safe recycling of as many as 8 million computer monitors and televisions, and 14 million cell phones, in California every year.
And CAW led the effort which resulted in the California Air Resources Board voting to implement a mandatory commercial recycling program as part of its adoption of the AB 32 Scoping Plan.
We're happy about these successes, but there's still so much more that could be done to promote recycling in our state.
Our Plan for 2010: Reducing Waste; Expanding Recycling; Creating Green Jobs.
Here are some of the legislative highlights of CAW's Waste Not plan that the legislature will take up in the New Year:
- Expand and Protect the Bottle Bill by adding ALL remaining beverage containers and ensuring funding for our best-in- the-nation recycling infrastructure.
- Reduce Single Use Grocery Bag litter and waste by promoting reusable bags and requiring recycling of carryout bags.
- Establish the goal of a 'Zero Waste California' and assign the New Department of Recycling responsibility for achieving 75% waste reduction, recycling and composting by 2020.
- Expand the successful California E-Recycling Law to include all electronic devices.
- Expand recycling to every California household (single and multi-family), institution and commercial business.
To do so, and to pass other important new recycling legislation, we need your support!
CAW has proven many times over our 32-year history that we can overcome special interests and their millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures. We do it the old-fashioned way: by organizing real grassroots support from members like you all over California.
We need your support today to persuade the legislature to pass critical new recycling legislation. Your year-end contribution to CAW will give us the resources we need to organize grassroots support and keep the pressure on the legislature and the governor until we win.
Thank you for your support of CAW. We truly appreciate your support, and, on behalf of our staff and Board of Directors, we wish you a very happy holiday season and a joyous and healthy new year.
Sincerely,
Mark Murray
Executive Director
P.S. During this holiday season, we urge you to make "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" your Holiday mantra! To help we've put some Green Holiday Tips on our website.