A little about recycling here at Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park's Landfill

Every day here at Big Bend National Park (BBNP) we work to keep single-use plastic and all recyclables out of the trash headed to our landfill.  Big Bend is one of the few National Parks that has its own landfill and there is real concern about it filling up. At the current pace, park management believes it will be full in 10 years.

Big Bend's Landfill, hidden from public view.
NPS Photo/Lori Michelowski

Even though we have large recycling bins next to our trash cans at most trailheads, all stores, and visitor centers, many people still miss them.

Trash and recycling cans at Rio Grande Village

Or visitors don't care, or don't understand the problem they create NOT putting recycling in trash cans here at Big Bend.

Big Bend National Park's Recycling Program

Big Bend is known to have one of the most comprehensive recycling programs in the national park service and in the State of Texas.  The National Park Service's Your Dollars at Work page shows how park entry fees have been used beginning in the 90's to enhance the park's recycling program to the point where 40% of total waste is recycled!!

Recycling bundled with trash

However, I still am finding recycling and single-use plastic bundled together with regular trash and thrown into the trash can together.

Reusable Albertson's grocery bag filled with recycling

So, I spend a little time each morning at the store pulling recyclables, mostly single-use plastic bottles, out of the trash and putting them into the appropriate recycling bin.  And when I'm doing that, my thoughts always go to WHY we have to even do this.

Trash can at our gas station 

This coke bottle is NOT returnable
Thanks, Coca Cola

The trash bins at our gas station collect a lot of recycling because it's easier to dump it than walk over to the bins :(

Returning this beer bottle would get you a small refund if returned in one of the states listed.  

How recycling began

After reading recent articles on how recycling got to this point and why we have recyclables in the first place (see Coca-Cola and deposit systems, Pick Up Your Shit Day, and  Sustainable design strategies), I realized it is basically because big companies like Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Pepsi switched from reusable/returnable glass containers to recyclable plastic in the 60's and 70's - mainly because it was cheaper and simpler to not deal with returnables and the public liked the 'new' idea.  Then, those same companies helped create recycling programs, and the Keep American Beautiful program, passing responsibility for dealing with this new waste problem on to the consumers.

Enhancing recycling at Big Bend National park

Here at Big Bend National Park, we can also do better.  The park stores do sell lots of plastic bottles and aluminum cans. After talking with a manager, we know there are companies that sell water in (compostable) cardboard boxes (kind of like drink boxes). We just need to find a vendor here that will make them available to the concessionaire, the company that manages the stores, restaurant, and lodge.

Eliminating as many plastic bottles from our shelves would also, automatically, reduce what gets put in the National Park landfill.  The park, vendors and the concessionaire would need to take the steps necessary to start reducing the volume of recyclables sold by

• replacing single-use plastic bottles with cardboard boxes, 
• encouraging visitors to use refillable, BPA-free bottles and 
• making drinking fountains available at every store in the park

One thing we do here at BBNP that is positive and environmentally friendly is that we only use paper bags and don't use the single-use, plastic bags you get at most grocery and convenience stores.  Plastic cups and styrofoam coolers are not sold or used at the park.

A sustainability Initiative to end the use of single-use plastic

As an example of making huge strides in this area, IKEA, from Sweden, is now taking a stand against this problem and recently updated their sustainability initiatives to a "people and planet-positive" commitment.  One of those commitments is to completely end their use of single-use plastic in Ikea stores and restaurants by 2020.  This article shows how Ikea is leading the way and showing us how large companies and organizations like National Parks can become planet positive and take us back to the days when there was no recycling to worry about.