Americans Get Serious About Recycling

Americans Get Serious About Recycling

Summary: Are you a winner when it comes to recycling?

Americans Get Serious About Recycling

Article Body: At home, at work and at school, Americans have successfully engaged in recycling programs--and one of the best success stories is paper.

In , a record-high . percent (. million tons) of all paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling. The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) hopes to increase that number and has set an ambitious goal of percent recovery by .

Every American can do his or her part. Although each community's recycling programs may be different, you can generally recycle newspapers, corrugated containers (cardboard), direct mail, magazines and catalogs. Check with your local municipality to find out what you can and cannot recycle.

The AF&PA Recycling Awards were created to recognize outstanding individual, business community and school paper recycling efforts. In , the program was expanded to include a category for schools.

This year's award winners are:

Ed Hurley Memorial Paper Recycling Award (for individual achievement)

Joel Ostroff, Macon County, North Carolina

AF&PA Business Leadership Recycling Awards

Small Business: Bluegrass Regional Recycling Corporation, Richmond, Kentucky

Large Business: Brewer Science, Inc., Rolla, Missouri

AF&PA Community Recycling Awards

Small Community: North-field, Minnesota

Large Community: Seattle, Washington

AF&PA School Recycling Awards

Classroom: Heber Springs High School, Heber Springs, Arkansas

Schoolwide: Mountain Home High School, Mountain Home, Arkansas

College & University: tie between the University of Colorado at Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, and the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon

"This year's Recycling Award winners have exhibited innovation and social responsibility," said AF&PA President & CEO W. Henson Moore. "Their accomplishments in recycling have set new precedents."