Everyone is welcome to attend all board and committee meetings.
Happy New Year! We are continuing to receive renewals and new members – thank you! (If you haven’t had a chance to renew your membership, please send $5 per member to PO Box 8942, Reston, VA 20195.)
The REACT Board thanks retiring board member Leslie Hall for all of her work over the years to establish and expand the organization. Leslie is one of our founding members and was involved in creating our mission, by-laws, articles of incorporation and more. She was instrumental in developing our first projects and chaired the committee which produced the Household Hazardous Waste brochure. We will miss Leslie at the board meetings, but know she is available as a member for us to call on when we need her!
Foam Packaging
We know that we can take our foam peanuts to a local mail/package service. But if holiday gifts left you with a pile of rigid foam block packaging (Expanded Polystyrene – EPS), you may want to consider mailing it to a recycling center. It requires some preparation work and cash, but maybe you could join neighbors or friends and combine a mailing to an EPS mail-back location such as Foam Fabricators, Inc., 7050 Columbia Blvd, 17 Industrial Dr., Bloomsburg, PA 17815, 570-752-7110.
The following mail back information is from The Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers (AFPR) www.epspackaging.org:
“If there is no EPS
recycling in your community, please send it via the
U.S. Postal Service or other carrier to the nearest mail-back location. Average
shipping fees range from $1.50-$9.00 based on the total packaging weight and
volume. Since expanded polystyrene is extremely light weight (98% air) it can
be economically shipped to a regional location. Considering that the average
car gets approximately 15-20 miles per gallon(mpg) at
$3.50 to $4.00 per gallon, the postage cost to return EPS for recycling is
often an economical – and more environmental – choice depending on
the distance covered to reach the closest community drop-off location if they
accepted EPS.
To maximize your EPS recycling
efforts via the mail-back option, we recommend the following:
1. Make sure the EPS is
clean and free of any tape, plastic film, labels, loose parts or glued-on
cardboard. Do not return any film plastics, food or medical waste or trash.
2. Increase the amount of
EPS in each shipping container by breaking or cutting it into small pieces so
that more can fit in a box.
3. When shipping EPS
biomedical coolers, completely empty the cooler. Tape the top and bottom
pieces together with packing tape and apply the label and postage directly to
the cooler. An outer box is not necessary.
4. AFPR does not accept
meat trays, cups, egg cartons or other disposable foodservice items for
recycling.
5. Prepare a shipping
label and affix postage for delivery to the nearest mail-back location.
6. To
facilitate shipping from home, the United States Postal Service (USPS) provides
numerous options for printing labels and /or postage using online resources.
This convenience also allows you to
have the shipment picked up by your local carrier as outbound mail and further
minimizes environmental impacts.”
If you do mail back your foam packaging, please send an email to Mary Brown to let us know.
Next REACT Board Meeting: Tuesday, January 27, 7:30 p.m., Reston Community
Center at Lake Anne, Room B
Check www.restonenvironmentalaction.org for
meeting dates, and other REACT information. If you would like to participate in a project or join a committee,
email Mary Brown or
call her at 703-620-0151.
This email was sent to you by Reston Environmental Action. To ensure delivery, please add info@restonenvironmentalaction.org to your address book.