Gunfighters acknowledge America Recycles Day

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Matthew Stines
  • 366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho --  The nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products is Nov. 15. Celebrating its tenth year, the effort has grown to include millions of Americans including Gunfighters pledging to increase their recycling habits at home and work and to buy products made with recycled materials.

The world has changed a lot in the last century. From individually packaged food servings to disposable diapers, more garbage is generated now than ever before. The average American discards around seven pounds of garbage every day. This garbage, the solid waste stream, goes mostly to landfills, where it's compacted and buried. As the waste stream continues to grow, so will pressure on the landfills, resources and environment.

"It is important for Gunfighters to recycle for diversionary purposes," said PaulaJo Brown, 366th Civil Engineer Squadron environmental flight chief. "You have to keep garbage out of landfills because of shrinking amounts of space. The base receives money which supports some of the recycling functions that support personnel. In turn, those personnel support the program. It is just a good thing for the environment all together."

According to the National Recycling Coalition, recycling is one of the easiest ways to help slow climate change and global warming. By recycling at home, everyone can help significantly lower the carbon emissions associated with extracting virgin materials, manufacturing products and waste disposal.

"There are huge energy savings when you recycle," said Mrs. Brown. "I know that when ore is extracted to get aluminum it's highly energy intensive. It takes about a tenth of the energy to recycle an aluminum can into a new product as opposed to starting with the raw material. Steel and copper mining is also very labor and energy intensive."

According to the National Recycling Coalition, there are three parts to the recycling process essential to making the system work: collection, manufacturing and resale. These components are so important they are represented by the three "chasing arrows" of the recycling logo.

"The triad of pollution prevention is reduce, reuse and recycle," said Angelia Binder, 366th CES conservation chief. "Reduce anything you can. Reuse, what you can. Basically there are certain things marketable in certain areas. Of course we are quite a ways from a big city, but we collect things that are marketable and things we can collect and make a profit from. The people in base shops and housing should collect their plastics, white bonds and aluminum cans, and then get them to the recycling center. We then do all the bailing and preparation for shipment.

"For those living on base, it's really easy to recycle," said Mrs. Binder. "Be sure to sort everything. The refuse hauler goes through base housing once a week and there's a new trailer at the Base Exchange for those who'd like to recycle on non-pick up days. The base recycling center takes bond, cardboard, packing paper, moving boxes, newspaper, glass, glossy magazines, aluminum cans and scrap metals. We also do a lot of metal recovery."

According to the base recycling center, during the 2007 fiscal year almost one million pounds of materials were recycled. For the same time period almost 5.5 million pounds of solid waste were generated on base and went to a landfill.

"As stewards of the environment, Gunfighters are responsible for preserving and protecting resources for future generations," said Mrs. Brown.

For more information about the benefits of recycling, visit the Air Combat Command Web site, www.acc.af.mil, the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, www.epa.gov, or call the recycle center at 828-4212 or environmental flight at 828-6351.