By ELIZABETH OLSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/business/media/part-of-waste-problem-becomes-part-of-solution.html?ref=recyclingofwastematerials
Summary: The Honest Tea company is going green. They generate about 20 million glass bottles and 60 million plastic bottles annually. Over all, Americans used 38.6 billion glass beverage containers, and 71.9 billion plastic beverage bottles in 2010, according to the Container Recycling Institute, an antiwaste organization based in Culver City, Calif. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that only about 33 percent of glass bottles, and as few as 27 percent of plastic bottles, are recycled. They want to make a change and start saving the earth so on April 30th they put this hige recycling bin in Times Square to remind people to recycle. After they are done in Time Square they plan on moving to other cities as well to help remind people to recycle. Only about 15 percent of the city’s total waste is being recycled. The New York Department of Sanitation says 182 tons of glass bottles and jars go into the trash every day. The giant recycling bin isn't all they are doing to help remind people to recycle. They are also advertising on city billboards, and at businesses and colleges in the city’s five boroughs. Participants will be able to claim a rewards point for each recycled container, and add points with a recycling pledge made on stage. Using points, they can claim items including cold bottles of Honest Tea, T-shirts, tickets to concerts and Broadway shows, yoga mats and skateboards. Honest Tea is doing everything they can to spread the word, they even have their own site called Thegreatrecycle.com where users can recycle an old Facebook status message in return for points in a program devised with Amalgamated Advertising. What they are doing is truly amazing.
Opinion/Reflection: I am so shocked that they have a 30 foot high recycle bin in New York! What they are doing is truly amazing and I am glad people are taking interest to try and spread the word of recycling. I am very surprised though that only 33 percent of glass bottles and as few as 27 percent of plastic bottles are being recycled and that needs to change. By this company doing what they are doing to help spread the word of recycling is truly fantastic and I think people will start to catch on and start to recycle more. I can really relate this to what we learned in Scinece about how the plastic bottles that aren't thrown away end up in a dead zone in the ocean. This dead zone is killing millions of animals. If people were more aware about recycling we would not have these dead zones and animals wouldn't be dying. I hope by this company advertising so much about recycling that people will stop littering and do what is right for the world.
Questions:
1. Do you think Honest Tea's advertising will work and make more people recycle? Why or why not?
2. What do you think will happen if we continue to not recycle plastic bottles?
3. If the world starts to do a better job recycling do you think the dead zones in the oceans will go away? Why?
Opinion/Reflection: The Honest Tea is doing a great job by putting this 30 foot high recycling bin in New York! It is not only reminding people to recycle, but it is also getting other companies to try and do the same thing. Honest Tea is one of the few companies that I have heard of that has really done a huge amount of recycling and going green. If they keep it up, shortly other companies will fall in their footsteps and take the same actions. It is extremely surprising that 182 tons of glass bottles and jars go into the trash each day. That is an appalling statistic. It bothers me that so many people complain about the earth starting to become polluted, but there is nothing being done. In my opinion it is not much harder to line the streets of cities with recycling cans as well as trash cans to give people the option to recycle. Like Ryan said, in science we learned about all of the plastic bottles going into the ocean and are beginning to destroy our aquatic ecosystems. I believe that if more and more companies and people begin to take initiative, and recycle, our world could become less and less polluted. I hope that other companies do so!
ReplyDeleteAnswer to Question #1: I do believe that Honest Tea's advertising will work to make more people recycle because other companies realize that while Honest Tea is doing a good deed, they are advertising their company as well. Companies will do anything that they can in order to get people to buy their product If putting a large 30 foot recycling bin in the middle of Times Square in New York City isn't enough, I don't know what is. Also, people have come to realize that the pollution and lack of recycling has become a large problem and will start helping! I hope this works!
Opinion: I think the Honest Tea recycling bin is a great idea. It is raising awareness of recycling and encouraging people to recycle. If I was a huge recycling bin in Philadelphia I would deffinately put water bottles in it. It is very sad that so much bottles do not get recycled. It is only making the environment more polluted. We have talked about this subject in science a lot. It would be cool for the Honest Tea Recycling bin to come to Philadelphia. It would be cool to see. I hope to see other companies do something about recycling and to see the recycling numbers increase.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to Question 1: I think what Honest Tea will help. Not only will more bottles be recycled but more people will be aware about recycling. I hope other companies follow in Honest Tea's footsteps and do things about recycling.
Opinion: That huge recycling bin is awesomeand I wish I could see it. It's good to see that companies are starting to go green. I never knew that only 33% of glass and 27% of plastic is recycled. It's upseting to see that and make me want to start to recycle more. I hope others try to do the same when they see the giant recycling bin. More companies need to follow in Honest Tea's footsteps. It's a coincidence that Ryan choose this topic when just finished learning about needing to recycle more to help our planet in Science. Great Job Honest Tea.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to Question 2:
If we don't continue to recycle plastic bottles our planet will continue to get worse. Our Oceans will be filled with plastic. Also it will kill the animals living in the Ocean. Our plabet will just look ugly with all the plastic on the ground. We will also be wasting our money because we can reuse the plastic bottles once we are finished to save money. We need to keep recycling to prevent these things from happening!
Opinion/Reflection: I think it is really cool that the Honest Tea put this huge recycling bin in Times Square. I really hope that this changes the actions of ther people in the city and they start recycling. There are so many bottles being purchased there and only 15% is recycled. When I went to New York City, I remember seeing bottles all over the place and I didn't see too many recycling bins. This is not acceptable and there needs to be a change. Maybe one day that this could come to Philadelphia and spread throughout the country. Hopefully, people will realize what they are doing and start recycling there bottles.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to question 1: I really do believe that the Honest Tea's advertising will work. When people pass it everyday, they realize the problem not recycling is causing and how this is a widely spread topic. Hopefully, more people will start recycling and help the environment.