Teabags, toilet paper and landscape mulch Email
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Wednesday, March 25, 2015 07:19 AM

 

REcycling in the landscape industryCelestial Seasonings tea is packaged without a string, tag, staple or individual wrapper for its teabags. A few years ago they realized that eliminating these elements of their product would save more than 3.5 million pounds of waste from entering landfills each year.

This year, the Scott paper company introduced its no-tube toilet paper product. The full-page ads that launched this product announce that each year 17 billion TP tubes are thrown away. Scott’s innovation may change how things roll in the bathroom – and to the landfill.

Within the landscape industry, Mountain High Tree, Lawn and Landscape Company has for many years had a no-debris-to-the-landfill policy about the tons of pruning debris their crews generate each year. Owner Ralph Bronk recalls the early years of his business when trucks drove what seemed like half-way to Kansas to dump debris at the landfill. It was costly in staff time and miles of driving, put emissions into the air and added tons of waste to the landfill.

Today, Mountain High repurposes 100% of the pruning debris into several grades and colors of mulch that are for sale to other landscape companies and others. Because the mulch is derived from organic material, Bronk says that once it is watered in, it settles onto the soil and does not blow away like mulch that has been recycled from treated or dried wood products such as pallets. Over time, the mulch breaks down and completes the cycle of returning back to the earth from which it came.

Mountain High also helps other organizations process mass quantities of green waste. They accept clean pruning debris at their facility and also take their huge grinding machine on a trailer hauled by a semi to municipalities and other landscape companies.

Bronk says he is pleased that his company has been able to turn a costly nuisance into a profit center by turning waste into a useful and earth-friendly product that ultimately returns to the earth. Mountain High is an ALCC Sustainable Landscape Partner.

Sustainable Landscape Partners

For a list of recycling centers throughout Colorado, click here.

Read more in this issue of Colorado Green NOW:
5 questions NOT to ask in an interview
Play the game like baseball
Need a mentor?
El Centro is an option for labor needs