Why Recycling Is Important to Knoxville

Why recycling is important to Knoxville is a question for which many Knoxvillians don’t have good answers. They might ask in response: What are the reasons why I should recycle? Or can I really help the environment by recycling? And I see Please Recycle signs everywhere. What is recycling good for?

Knoxville Recycling Info Knoxville City residents: call (865) 522-0078 to sign up for Waste Connections curbside recycling service. Knox County residents: sign up for Residential Recycling Pick Up Service here Commercial Service Request Knox-Area Commercial Recycling Services Do you know other reasons why recycling is important to Knoxville -- or to any community? Please share your reasons for recycling with us! Recycling Articles What are the reasons why I should recycle? Fun Recycling Facts Help the Environment by Recycling Do you want to share information about recycling in Knoxville? Contact us to submit an article about it.

First is perhaps not the most obvious answer, but it's one that should leap into the minds of recycling proponents whenever they’re asked why recycling is important to Knoxville.

Knoxville’s natural topography, rivers, lakes and proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National park are enormous assets in attracting new employers, better jobs and money-spending tourists to the Knoxville area. If we’re not taking advantage of every opportunity to maintain, improve and beautify the air, water and land that create this much-desired natural resource, we’re foolishly squandering one of our greatest competitive advantages.

Recycling in Knoxville – rather than littering or filling our landfill with re-usable resources – helps to protect our precious natural beauty, drives our already considerably low energy prices lower and is considerably less damaging to our land, air and water. Each of these results of recycling are attractive to employers, and can help Knoxville grow in a sustainable manner.

Not convinced? Here we use a few statistics and the story of recycling in Knoxville to illustrate further the answers to the above questions.

In 1992, amid a national recycling frenzy, Waste Connections of Tennessee, the City of Knoxville’s contractor for solid waste residential pick up, introduced curb-side recycling as a free service.

That time was the height of Knoxville recycling; over 50% of our families had home recycling bins. One could argue that’s still a bit pitiful considering it was a free curb-side service, but compared to today, 50% is pretty darn good!

There were kids recycling programs in schools, and students brought the startling information they learned about why recycling is important to Knoxville home to their parents, and asked, “Why aren’t we recycling?” And the recycling effort grew.

Then Waste Connections had to face their shareholders with the fact that they were offering a free service that requires a fleet of specialty trucks that cost over $100,000 each, plus they were paying drivers and processors, among other expenses.

They were given no choice but to charge a small fee to keep from losing a large sum of money to continue to offer the service to greater Knoxville.

At that point, it was encouraging that Waste Connections decided to be a good corporate citizen of the Knoxville community (and of others around the country), and continued to offer the service. Recycling pick up offers a very low profit margin, and most of the largest waste corporations – like Waste Management – appear to have little interest in offering such a low-profit service.

More than 10 years later, the monthly fee for curb-side service is still less than $10 a month. A pittance when you consider that the average cable bill is over $50 a month, and many cable bills reach the $100 range.

Unfortunately, it appears that the vast majority of Knoxvillians disagree with that statement, because the better than 50% participation rate from the free service days dropped to considerably less than 10%.

Why Recycling Is Important to Knoxville: Fun Recycling Facts

Odds are, if you’re reading this article and you’re from Knoxville, you’re not using the service. So please consider these points that answer why recycling is important:

1. If we recycled just half of the annual production of Knoxville News Sentinel papers, that would equal an annual savings of 380,000 trees; 155 million gallons of fresh water; 10 million gallons of oil; 13 million pounds of air pollution; 68,000 cubic yards of Knoxville’s landfill space and 91 million Kilowatt hours of electricity.
2. The average family in our community produces 60 pounds of recyclable waste every month. That’s 720 pounds per year, multiplied times 52,000 house holds (a conservative estimate of the number of families not using the recycling service) = 37 million pounds of waste going into our Knoxville landfill each year that doesn’t have to be there.
3. If Knoxville recycled aluminum cans at just the national average, we could save the equivalent of the electricity it takes to watch over 200 million hours of TV!

2400 Chipman Street
Knoxville, TN 37917
(865) 522-0078.

You can also help by getting extra brochures from Waste Connections when you sign up, and give them to your friends and neighbors. Or refer them to this article.

Oak Ridge has over 50% of its citizens utilizing this curb-side service. Show them your Knoxville neighborhood can do better!

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Please recycle!

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