Emma Anderson’s journey to sustainability began with walks alongside her mother, the two of them working together even on those hot, sunny days to pick up litter around their Bremerton neighborhood.
Her upbringing in a household that prioritized showing respect to the earth sparked a long-lasting commitment to environmental stewardship that landed the Western Washington University alum an internship this year with Waste Management.
“My parents really taught me to care about the environment around me,” she said. “I’m eager to leverage my internship experiences to drive positive change with waste practices and also inspire others in the community to embrace sustainability.”
Anderson is traveling around the state to pass her inspirations on to others as one of a select group of Waste Management Recycle Corps interns. Outreach coordinator Rhianne Janovich said 9-12 interns are selected every year to supercharge the outreach effort across Western Washington.
“Our goal is to have a lot of hands-on deck to meet all the businesses, the multi-family properties and residents where they are and spread the message to them in the communities. The other goal, then, is to provide a platform for these young professionals to become more professional.”
The outreach-centered position recently brought Anderson back to Bremerton Aug. 1 for a day of education and accessibility analysis. Businesses with or without active recycling practices received visits from WM, hearing the whys behind recycling from an environmental lens: reducing emissions from production practices, waste reduction, natural resource conservation and the like.
Janovich said visits to businesses, as well as multi-family living establishments and property managers, are all about moving the needle on levels of regular recycling, even if it means looking at things from outside the environmental impact. “Sometimes, it doesn’t cut it. We’re gonna do it from a business perspective as well. If you are able to reduce the amount of volume in your garbage, you can potentially save on your garbage bill,” she said.
Site visits, Anderson said, are started with an audit or an assessment of what is being put in the different bins of trash or recycling even before the interns introduce themselves and hold a conversation with the owners of businesses to see if there are any concerns.
Part of that conversation includes reminders of what can and can’t be recycled, Janovich adding on to a common misconception within the recycling community.
“You will often see that recycling symbol on (something). Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean every item that has that symbol can be recycled. It always matters what your local guide will say.”
Guides for the cities of Bremerton and Port Orchard specify not to put items such as plastic bags in the bins but to instead reuse or recycle them at grocery stores. These bags, styrofoam, used materials like pizza boxes and even batteries are also commonly thrown in recycling bins without a second thought.
“Batteries have the ability to ignite fires if they are crushed in certain ways,” Janovich said. “They’re incredibly dangerous to put in your garbage or recycling, so getting out a message to everyone on how to properly sort your batteries for collection, not on your curbside is very pressing, especially with lithium-ion batteries.”
The good news, Anderson said, is that people do care and are willing to learn. She added that continuing to educate about recycling at a young age is just as important as the visits WM is conducting to various communities. “A lot of kids care about recycling, they want to do the right thing, and they’re learning so much about recycling that they’re teaching their parents,” she said. “I think recycling is becoming more normalized, but also just more education is out there than ever and we have more access to education than ever before.”
