The City has taken a pretty strong position on recycling and education surrounding recycling which will help reduce landfill. In my building (434 suites) we went from 35% of our waste going to recycling (summer/fall 2008, which was our landlord advised was already above average within their company) to around 55% in January/February of this year. The management and tenant's association has worked together to educate residents and make physical changes to the way garbage is disposed of here with astounding results. Education continues and more changes/tweaks are continuing to help bring our recycling ratio even higher. Point is, there's less garbage coming from my building and going into a landfill which was not a whole lot of work to help affect change and people's disposal habits.
Good, you mentioned consumer awareness. That's one of the key point. Few people realize the severe impacts waste has on our environment and even less people actually act accordingly by slightly altering their lifestyle.
Keep in mind that even with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, we can only reduce our waste by up to 60% (at its best). A lot of waste is still going to the landfill. There was a case study where a highschool geography teacher took care of his own waste safely without ever using municipal waste pickup for 30 years! (might be a little extreme, but he shows that it is possible.)
And that's in an environment where packaging is often not designed to be recycled.
Packaging! very very important. Before we do any of the 3Rs, it starts with federal leadership by strictly regulating manufacturers to NOT overpackage their products. There are way too many "flashy" and unecessary packagings.
Part of my other research was on Diapers! Avoid disposable diapers as much as possible (e.g., long trips, traveling) and try to stick with clothe/reusable diapers or decomposable diapers on regular basis.
Now, my knowledge on waste may be bias, so don't flame at me if you disagree
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
, i'm just trying to get a discussion going and get people to be aware of the problems that we have.