Category: Feature Stories

The smell of fallen leaves, sharpened pencils, and bagged lunches is in the air and that can mean only one thing – it’s BACK TO SCHOOL TIME!

All across North America, parents, students, and educators are getting ready for another year of learning the all-important “3Rs”: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle! We’re here to help you start the year off right with eco-conscious back to school tips and tricks!

We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend recycling conferences across North America each year. This year has already seen many noteworthy events including Kyle Wiens’ keynote at AOR and National Recycling Coalition President, Mark Lichtenstein’s presentation at the Michigan Recycling Conference. Now entering it’s sixth year, the Resource Recycling Conference (RRC) has been the gathering place for industry leaders across the continent and this year will not disappoint. We are extremely excited for this year’s RRC in Indianapolis, IN and here are our top five reasons why:

If you could travel back in time, what would be the one thing you would bring with you?

Most of you will probably answer “the winning lottery ticket numbers”, “my computer” or “detailed instructions on how to build the time machine in case it breaks and I need to get back”. I would bring back an air-powered nail gun.

Why a nail gun? Witnessing the expression of awe on a home builder’s face when you drive a nail into a 2×4 in a millisecond would be the ultimate moment. Tools have the ability to transform a routine task: finish it faster, improve the quality of the finished product, and even improve the experience of the user. I experienced the opposite transformation a few weeks ago when Darryl (one of our Re-TRAC Connect developers) and I volunteered to build homes for Habitat for Humanity.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to sit in on a presentation at the Sustainable Oregon conference, organized by the Association of Oregon Recyclers. The presentation entitled “Sustainable Consumption: Why, What, and How?” was delivered by David Allaway (Oregon DEQ) and Lauren Norris (City of Portland). In the presentation, David and Lauren shared highlights from a recent workshop held in Eugene, OR. The Role of Cities in Advancing Sustainable Consumption workshop consisted of academic researchers and policy experts seeking to explore actions that cities can take towards achieving a more sustainable consumption rate at the local level.

In the year 2015, it’s hard to accept the fact that advancements in technology alone will not solve the over-consumption problem we have created on its own. David Allaway spoke of the global consumption crisis that is upon us – our global ecological footprint is equal to approximately 1.5 of the Earth’s. What does that mean?

A number of Re-TRAC Connect programs were featured in the news last month. Here’s the recap:

Ontario Waste Management Association looks to close the data gap

How do I stack up against the rest of the sector? How do I determine our baseline in order to measure success or failure?

These are some of the questions that Rob Cook, CEO of the Ontario Waste Management Association (OWMA), set out to answer with the help of Re-TRAC Connect. He determined that the first step towards assisting his member organizations in answering these questions is to start with province-wide data collection from landfills. OWMA aims to expand the program to other facilities by the end of this year. Rob Cook was recently profiled in the Solid Waste & Recycling news.

When we encounter a challenge we typically:

1) Learn about the issue
2) Reflect on past issues to seek similar solutions
3) Brainstorm possible solutions based on all known criteria
4) Propose solution and come to an agreement with everyone involved
5) Implement
6) Schedule a future evaluation

The Re-TRAC Connect Blog is our solution to conquer the following challenge:

“How do we communicate new features to our 18,000+ users without overwhelming their inbox?”

They say everything is bigger in Texas. Well, they weren’t kidding! We’re proud to announce that the Texas Recycling Data Initiative (TRDI) results are in and it was a BIG success. TRDI is a voluntary, collaborative, and confidential study that, with the help of Re-TRAC Connect, quantifies the amount of recycling that occurred in Texas in 2013 and establishes a baseline recycling rate to measure future progress.

We’ve been in love with data over 12 years and the relationship has never been stronger. As you know, February is the month of love – so in the spirit of sharing love, we’d like to take this opportunity to share some of our favourite stories about data. While these stories are attractive to the mind, we’re sure that you’ll also find them heartwarming.

Click the logos below to read the case studies.