Composting | Recycling

*NOTE* - New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club's Conservation Committee will be updating our work with our partners in the area on this municipal solid waste issue. To get involved, send an email to Barry Kohl - bkohl40_at_cs_dot_com and put "RECYCLING Sierra Club" in the Subject Line.

COMPOSTING
External to the Sierra Club, Keep Louisiana Beautiful and others have been working to improve our local environment and resource conservation and recovery.  Lynne Serpe has forwarded the following info about a NEW COMPOSTING DROP-OFF program that has rolled out in 2017.
HOW IT WORKS
Residents are asked to freeze and bring:

-fruit and vegetable scraps, peels, or pits; 
-eggshells, nut shells, seed shells; 
-tea bags, coffee grounds, paper filters; 
-plain pasta, grains or bread. 

NO MEAT, NO DAIRY, NO OILY FOODS, NO BONES.

Residents are asked to bring their frozen food waste in a paper or compostable bag or a reusable container. 

Not everyone is ready or able to build and maintain a compost bin in their backyard or have a worm bin in their home. But now, residents can still help reduce the amount of food waste going into landfills by participating in this free, easy & convenient food waste collection program!

DID YOU KNOW:
Americans throw out over 36 million tons of food waste each year. Once in landfills, food breaks down to produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change.

FOR MORE INFORMATION / TO VOLUNTEER
Please contact Lynne Serpe at lynneserpe.nola@gmail.com with any questions, or offers to help. 

Volunteers are needed to help staff collections. Please sign up at http://signup.com/go/Hv7gEu and then just show up on the day/time you can make it.

SAVE THE DATE: Compost Conference: Let's Talk Trash! on Saturday, November 4th. Free to attend. More details coming soon.

THANK YOU
We'll continue to collect FROZEN food waste at Rosa Keller Library every Saturday from 10:30am-noon (back entrance) but will move our Alvar Library collection to every Wednesday evening, 6:00-7:30pm in July and August.
That way we will have both a weekend and a weekday evening option, with both an uptown and a downtown location.

NEW: We add the Mid-City Library in September! 

At that point, we will be at FIVE library sites and will need to adjust the entire schedule quite a bit, so be on the lookout for new days/times starting in September.

"LIKE" OUR NEW FACEBOOK PAGE: Compost NOW
Please "like" us on Facebook and share weekly food waste drop-off events with your friends: https://www.facebook.com/CompostNewOrleansWaste/

JUNE 10th IS SECOND SATURDAY - INCLUDES GLASS RECYCLING
The Department of Sanitation offers monthly recycling drop-off at the Recycling Drop-Off Center at 2829 Elysian Fields Avenue on the Second Saturday of every month from 8:00am until 1:00pm. You can bring them up to 50 pounds of GLASS! For more information about what else they can / cannot take:

CURRENT DROP OFF LOCATIONS UNTIL END OF JUNE

Rosa Keller Library: every Saturday from 10:30am - noon
4300 S Broad, New Orleans
Just outside rear entrance, by deck

Alvar Library: every Saturday from 2-4pm until June 24th 
913 Alvar Street, New Orleans
Just outside front entrance

Friends of the Library Carriage House Book Shop: every Wednesday from 12-2pm until June 28th

Behind Latter Library, 5120 St. Charles Avenue

Every Wednesday from 12-2pm until June 28th

Children's Resource Center Library: every Wednesday from 5-7pm until June 28th 

913 Napoleon Avenue (near Magazine)

Outside front entrance
Every Wednesday from 5-7pm until June 28th

JULY & AUGUST - TWO DROP OFF LOCATIONS ONLY

Rosa Keller Library: every Saturday from 10:30am - noon
4300 S Broad, New Orleans
Outside rear entrance, by upper deck

Alvar Library: every Wednesday from 6:00-7:30pm
913 Alvar Street, New Orleans
Outside front entrance

RECYCLING


Follow this link (http://sierraclub.org/outings/louisiana/reports-fact-sheets) to the Delta Chapter's Recycling and Solid Waste page.

SUCCESS! City of New Orleans has resumed Curbside Residential and Small-Business Recycling
https://www.nola.gov/sanitation/recycling/
A Drop-Off Program is also available for residents of larger multi-family buildings:
https://www.nola.gov/sanitation/recycling/drop-off

Jefferson Parish also offers a Recycling Program
http://www.jeffparish.net/index.aspx?page=3755

SOME INFORMATION BELOW MAY BE OUT OF DATE

Area Target stores are now collecting glass for recycling


Target is recycling glass (brown, green, clear), plastic (#1, #2) and plastic bags at both the Metairie and Harvey locations.
It's great to see an easy place to drop off glass.

Recycling guide book newly released for the New Orleans area:

Get the new regionwide recycling resource guide book (PDF 730 Kb - not small but worth it). This comprehensive Guide book lists 39 categories of items that can be recycled in the New Orleans metro region and where to bring them. *Note* The following is the most up to date reference: https://www.nola.gov/sanitation/documents/new-orleans-recycling-guide/

Recycling e-action

Help the Sierra Club Bring Back the Blue Bins!
17 months after Katrina, the city is facing massive challenges: Rebuilding, crime, little affordable housing, expanded landfills, and not enough classes for school-children. Despite these problems, the city is signing fat contracts for automated twice-weekly garbage pickup and a Disney-fied French Quarter. Meanwhile, the city has done nothing to reinstate curb-side recycling, despite the energy savings, and reduced need for landfill space that recycling provides.
Please visit this website to send a message to the Mayor and City Council leaders Oliver Thomas and Arnie Fielkow and demand action:
Web campaign tool provided by the Gulf Restoration Network.

"Repurposed" Art Gives Junk A New, Well, Purpose By Marni Jameson

(From Times-Picayune's 1/27/07 "Inside Out" Section)
Marni Jameson's column gives readers some great ideas for turning "junk" into "art": Architect Steve Dodds, for example, took a trashed lampshade, "re-covered it with spent subway tickets, and gave the shade a new,
more interesting veneer, and a second life.
"Empty dog food cans? Dodds stripped the labels, connected a row of five cans to a metal rod using thick elastic ponytail holders, and attached the rod with pushpins to a bulletin board above his desk. The result:
a multi-tasking pencil holder."

Recycling update...

The aluminum drinking can recycling project at Sacred Heart. Cans may be dropped off in the recycling bins on Carondelet Street behind the school at 4521 St. Charles. We will soon have newspaper recycling too.
Cissy Poindexter. Recycle newspapers and magazines in parking lot of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, corner of Louisiana and Chestnut, there are bins. You can recycle your newspapers, metal scrap, cardboard, copper, paper, aluminum, and all personal electronic devices (including cell phones) at The Green Project, 2831 Marais St. during business hours: Tue-Sat, 9-4. phone (504) 945-0240

Recycling Services in New Orleans

Wendy King
In the six months since Hurricane Katrina's devastation, New Orleans' city government has cut many of its most essential services. One of these services, under contract to BFI (now part of Allied Waste), is (or was) picking up residents' recyclables one day a week, sorting recyclables, and sending them off to become raw materials for new products. Without a recycling service, most New Orleans area residents probably feel they have no choice but to dump their newspapers, aluminum cans, glass, and plastic into the nearest trashcan, and put those tarp-colored blue plastic bins somewhere else, such as a nearby alley or in the garage. If you're not ready to put your recycling principles somewhere out of reach, here are several area recycling companies, their addresses, and phone numbers. If you need to get your accumulated recyclables out of your house, business, office or apartment, these companies and their staff are ready to help:

Phoenix Recycling

Phoenix Recycling is a New Orleans owned recycling company
http://www.phoenixrecyclingnola.com/

Airline Salvage, Inc. 6900 Airline Hwy.

Phone number is (504) 737-1100. I talked to Stanley Herrle, He said that the company has been "open since the storm. . .8 or 10 days after the storm. We're offering it for sale. . ." The company "put a lot of money back into the community." There are "lots of people in line. . .Business is quite good. If you have an unlimited supply of material, we have an unlimited supply of funds." Hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, they're open 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Catalytic Converter Recycling (aka Mark's Muffler Shop), 5229 St. Claude Avenue

(504) 944-7733. Mark Brink says that his company's "doing really good." His company's "specialty is removing them (catalytic converters) from junk cars and wrecks. We can't reinstall them. We take them apart, and sell the individual parts, such as rhodium, platinum, and palladium. The outside of a catalytic converter is steel, and is very recyclable." The hours are 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to Saturday <>Farrell and Farrell, 725 3rd Street Kenner.They recycle clean wood waste only. Phone
(504) 305-3826 for days and times.

Legacy Project Office Recycling, (504) 865-7220.

According to Legacy Project president Richard Hammant, the company is "still operating. It took a little bit of time. People have been returning, pretty significantly." Legacy specializes in the "paper product end of it. We're getting a lot of calls from people wondering what to with plastic, aluminum, and glass." When I asked about Vista Fibers, he said that that company "is only operating in Hammond at the moment."

Riverside Recycling and Disposal, 11266 Hwy 23, Belle Chasse

(504) 656-2232. Owner Kenny Stewart says that the company's materials recovery facility (MRF) for paper, cardboard and other recoverable materials, has closed down, but its buyback center is still open. The company buys back copper, aluminum cans, brass, stainless steel and carbon steel (scrap iron). Call the company for days and times.

Southeast Paper Recycling Corp., 246 St. George Ave., Jefferson La.

(504)733-1954. According to the Yellow Pages, its paper recycling work is to "organize and provide containers for newspaper drives (must meet requirements). I wasn't able to talk to one of this company's staff members.

Southern Scrap Material Co., LLC.

It has 3 locations: 4801 Florida Ave., (504) 942-0341; 2525 Lafitte Avenue (504) 822-5561; River Road, Westwego (504) 436-4061. It recycles aluminum, iron, steel, copper, junk cars, tin, brass, and radiators. Call for days and times.

Veronica Industries LLC (dba All-Scrap Metals) 7 Vets Memorial Blvd.,  Kenner

(504) 471-0241. They can place roll-off containers at a business. They pay cash for aluminum cans and all scrap metals. Call them for days and times.

Duncan Recycling and Hauling (no street address)

(504) 861-1951. The son and grandson specialize in school paper recycling pickups and removal (one dozen clients and several business accounts), according to Mr. Duncan, the founder.

BFI (now part of American Waste)

reported recently that their facility was reopening. Their phone number, (504) 828-5922, has been disconnected, so I couldn't find out more details about their plans for resuming recycling pickup services.

Recycled Products Cooperative.

http://www.recycledproducts.org/