The Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act

A few days ago I was dining at Bread Co. with a friend.
We finished our meal and I looked at all the 'trash' we had left on the table: plastic utensils, cups, and containers with no recycling bin on site.

This is bullshit, I told Friend, I recycle at home and generate one blue tub per week but very few businesses in the city recycle. It should be mandatory.

City Hall has started recycling again, he told me, apparently some grant was reinstated. This was surprising to me. I thought City Hall would have been the recycling leader in St. Louis City.

There's a couple of businesses in my neighborhood that recycle. Remains on Morgan Ford Rd is in the business of post consumer products. Along a recent walk through the alleys behind MGF I discovered the only business using a blue recycling dumpster is Local Harvest.

Of course Local Harvest pays for this service. With the current government chatter on GREEN (this post title is linked to a video) why aren't we implementing programs for business? There has to be a plan in place that rewards recycling.

Next time you're at Home Depot on Kingshighway, drive around to the back. There's a huge cardboard baler they use and it's probably sold for profit. But what about their paper, plastic, and discarded wood cuts? Profit has to be the incentive.

Asking small business to incur yet another cost in a down economy isn't feasible. As a former brick and mortar business owner and I know about the costs.

My small business generated a lot that could be recycled buy it didn't always make it into my car for a ride to the off site bins.

Please join me in emailing our alderpeople, state reps, and the mayor to ask for tax credits for all businesses that use recycling services. Let's establish and implement a plan and make it reality within a one year deadline and stop paying lip service and continue spending our dollars where blue dumpsters are housed.

I'll be posting the response I get from my alderman. I'll post yours also.