In case you missed it: Thoughtful, newsworthy comments from industry professionals, consumers, and legislators.
"I always believe there are ways to build profitable businesses that are also doing good for the world."
— Zerocycle CEO Hunter Hayes in an interview with Waste Dive on the company's recent launch of its Resident Engagement Platform pilot program in four major cities. The platform offers "neighborhood waste reports" to participants to give a visual and digestible representation of how well their neighborhood is doing with diversion efforts.
“My father told me, ‘You stay in the garbage business and you’ll never get laid off' ... There’s always more garbage."
— Metropolitan Recycling garbage collector Julius Brewster, 56, who has been working in the waste industry since he was only 17. Brewster was just one voice in a recent Crain's piece that took an in-depth look at recycling in New York City, raising questions regarding the practicality of Mayor de Blasio's plan to reach zero waste by 2030.
"A closing of this kind of business is not without consequence. The city worked diligently to try to create a compliance framework for it."
— Oakland assistant city administrator Claudia Cappio in an interview with East Bay Times regarding the closure of Alliance Recycling. While Alliance was seen as a necessary resource for scavengers who made a living off of bringing materials to the facility, its history of citations and fines ended up being its source of failure.
"It doesn't matter if I'm a garbage man or if I'm a CFO at State Farm. We all have to discover our gift and be effective."
— Garbage collector Delvar Dopson to NBC Chicago regarding bringing birthday presents to his most admiring customer, a 3-year-old girl named Brooklyn. Dopson and Brooklyn developed a connection after Brooklyn spent a year anticipating his arrival every Thursday morning to collect the trash.
"Being a woman, small business owner within Massachusetts, I learn every day from my colleagues, my clients and my employees to be a better CEO and president, to be a better business owner, and better provide the services that are constantly changing in this marketplace to meet the needs of my clients."
— Lisa DiPaolo Bacewicz, CEO of PC Survivors of Massachusetts, L.L.C., regarding her electronics recycling and data destruction company in Hanover, MA. Bacewicz and her husband operate the local R2:RIOS certified center to offer secure on-site hard drive data destruction solutions to clients from a variety of industries, including healthcare and banking.
"It’s unsustainable to constantly take natural resources and produce a product that’s eventually going to be thrown away. Summarily, it’s unsustainable to run a business not making money and not growing ... So sustainability, to me, goes hand-in-hand with business environmental opportunities."
— Adam Siegel, vice president for sustainability and retail operations at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, to Retail Dive regarding the issue of reverse supply chain waste. Retail Dive found in 2014, returns accounted for 8.89% of all retail sales—much of which was handled in a wasteful or inefficient way.