The Benefits of Diverting Organic Waste from Landfills

Written by volunteer: Kate Sheppard Diverting waste from landfill can sometimes feel like a chore, but the benefits far outweigh the temporary annoyance of getting your hands dirty. This is especially true of organic waste. Yes, it may occasionally be sticky or smelly, but it’s not hard to properly sort and divert these compostable materials…

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Let’s Talk About Organics Recycling

Solana Center is proud to work with a majority of jurisdictions in the San Diego region to help with organics green bin distribution and provide education on what goes where as both residents and businesses begin participating in this important program spurred by SB 1383 legislation. At the start of summer 2021, EDCO distributed kitchen…

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Recycling – Why is it important?

Recycling conserves natural resources and lets us skip the harmful extraction and refining process that goes into making products from virgin materials. Making stuff from the materials of other stuff uses less energy and water and stops that stuff from filling our landfills. Recycling one… Plus, recycling accounts for 3.1 million jobs in the U.S.…

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EPS Food Container Alternative List

EPS is “expanded polystyrene,” commonly known by the brand name Styrofoam™.  There are environmental concerns with EPS, including difficulty in recycling, source of man-made marine debris, and greenhouse gas emissions from the embedded energy of the manufacturing process. Additionally, EPS food containers are not fully recyclable in a single-stream process because they break up in…

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Recycling Used Motor Oil

Did you know that used motor oil never wears out? It just gets dirty and can be recycled, cleaned, and used again. Recycling used motor oil conserves a natural resource and is good for the environment too! Motor oil poured onto the ground or into storm drains, or tossed into trash cans can contaminate and…

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Secondhand compost bins take recycling to the next level

At Solana Center, we live the values of reduce, reuse, and recycle in all forms. This spurred the idea to offer our pre-loved bins to the community at reduced prices at our store. This is a solution to both provide residents with an opportunity to give their compost bins another life if they aren’t being…

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From the Rotline: Are all Biodegradable Plastics Compostable?

Rotline Question: What is the difference between biodegradable plastics and compostable plastics? Answer: Plastic that is compostable is biodegradable, but not every plastic that is biodegradable is compostable. Biodegradable plastic may be engineered to biodegrade in soil or water, whereas compostable plastic refers to biodegradation into soil conditioning material (i.e., compost) under a certain set…

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Plastic Recycling Program – Thanks to Plastic Beach!

Tell a friend, we’ve got a new plastic bag recycling program at Solana Center! Thanks to our partner Plastic Beach for making recycling easier for plastic materials that can’t go in your standard blue bin. They work to ensure all of the plastic bags and film are staying in the USA and being recycled nearby, keeping…

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Recyclable Materials Breakdown

Many of us have run into confusion around recycling, not sure what is recyclable and what isn’t. Well, it’s not just you, recycling is complicated. This is mostly because the term recyclable is pretty complicated. While anything can technically be used as a material for something else, whether something is recyclable is different from something actually getting recycled. Recyclable…

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Reduce

Reduce is the practice of making and having less and inevitably disposing of less. Waste reduction is our ultimate goal, not only because it protects our environment from waste and doesn’t add to our landfills, but because it avoids the destructive process the happens upstream of our materials, the harm of extraction and manufacturing. The…

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