Can a Community Co-op Get Small Businesses to Recycle?
Maryrose Myrtetus ’15 is spending the summer working with Greenovate Boston, a grassroots community organization, to improve the city’s commercial recycling rates. On the Yale Center for Business and the Environment blog, she shares the lessons she’s learned:
I recently hit the pavement and spoke to store owners from Allston to Jamaica Plain and (almost) all neighborhoods between to enroll businesses in a recycling co-op pilot designed to reduce each businesses’ overall waste costs while increasing recycling rates in their neighborhoods.
The extent of the logistical challenges that reared their ugly heads was stunning. Of the dozens of business owners I’ve met, no two waste processes are the same. It seems that every owner has a personal story behind his or her waste practice, and the stories speak volumes about the savvy of different business owners, specific limitations within each neighborhood, persuasion of the customer base, and environmental awareness of the managers.