Recycle on base, reduce waste

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Cody Dowell
  • Altus Air Force Base Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. – --  There is a day dedicated to educating and motivating everyone to recycle and getting involved is easy.

America Recycles Day, is Nov. 15, which is about raising awareness and taking actions to recycle. Altus Air Force Base has a few programs to help to educate the base populace about recycling.

“We inform the base wide populace about the value that recycling has,” said Michael Reyes, 97th Civil Engineer Squadron installation solid waste program manager. “A lot of people look at their waste as what it is, ‘trash’, without realizing that 80 percent of what they throw away is recyclable. On the base we have a really active recycling program that we use as one of our major contributors towards our mandatory 50 percent diversion rates.”

Recycling goes beyond informing Airmen, it is also about educating the next generation.

“We talk to the kids at the child development center, youth center and library about the importance of recycling,” said Reyes. “We do this to build the foundation of recycling so it can continue. If you can educate the kids about the environment then they can educate their parents about it, the family will practice it and it becomes a norm that will hopefully last for a long time.”

Educating the youth promotes an understanding of recycling and how it provides for a better environmental future.

“The landfill has a limited service life of a certain amount of years,” said Reyes. “When that landfill is completely filled you have to move it to another location and that costs the city a lot of money. Recycling extends the life of the landfill, therefore saving the city and tax payers a lot of money.”

There are different products that the base can recycle in order to reduce waste. Anyone can recycle plastic, paper or aluminum by taking them to the recycling center on base. To keep waste to a minimum, U.S. Air Force bases strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

“The Air Force is an environmentally conscious agency and has a mandatory limit on how much of our disposed objects are going to the land fill,” said Reyes. “The base aligns with the commanders priorities for everyone on base to be environmental stewards by doing everything they can to be environmentally friendly and recycling is one of the easiest ways to do that.”

For more information about how to recycle on base contact the recycling center at 481-7698. For more information on America Recycles Day contact Michael Reyes at 481-6221.