This means you can start throwing plastics labeled #3, #4, #5, #6, and #7 into your blue bin along with the #1 and #2 plastics. They will accept all plastics except plastic wrap, plastic bags, and Styrofoam (all things you can easily avoid using with minimal effort). And don’t forget, they also started accepting cardboard for curbside pickup in April – epic awesomeness!

The Charleston Post & Courier had this quote from Charleston County Council member Colleen Condon:

Expanding Charleston County’s Recycling Program to recycle all plastics #1 through #7 allows us to provide better service to our citizens and move closer to our 40 percent recycling goal with this important step.

Cheers to the Jenny and the CCR team, the Council, and everyone else who made this happen. I know it’s been a long time coming, and something that all of us local greenies have been hoping for. In fact, it’s the most common question we get from Go Green readers, and now I have the answer they want to hear!

What are you working on eliminating? Oil-based gas, plastic bags, food from far off continents? Bottled water, dirty electricity, resource-intensive meat? Let us know in the new Go Green Poll.

Results from the last Go Green Poll, Summer is here – what sustainable action are you focused on?, can be viewed after the jump >>

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Paint cans, old rugs, a box of food – this stuff does not belong here. We need to encourage others to use our recycling drop sites with respect, or they won’t be around much longer. I know taking your used paint out to Bee’s Ferry is a haul, but until Charleston County Recycling can provide more drop sites, it’s all we have.

And back to the “unneeded” part (every year some phone book advocate shows up touting the greatness of their publication for small business advertising…yawn). Both The Real Yellow Pages and The Talking Phone Book have great online directories, so I think this year I’ll cut the cord and begin using them. Why use 3,800 pages of paper to do something the Internet can do faster, cheaper, and with less impact on the environment? To stop the phone book from being delivered to your home or business, you can simply opt out! Here’s how:

• The Real Yellow Pages: Fill out this form.
• Talking Phone Book: Email their distribution department.

If you want to take it up a notch, here are some great ideas from YellowPagesGoesGreen.org on how you can work with your local goverment to establish better practices for the distribution of phone books.

I also feel that while the drop sites give motivated recyclers an option, they are only part of the solution. I see scenes like the one above on every trash day, and sometimes the cardboard is actually broken down and stacked in a pile – they’re doing everything but driving it to the drop site! I know there is an issue with the trucks/equipment, but Charleston County needs to figure this out. If you feel like I do, and think cardboard recycling rates would soar if it was picked up curbside, then let the Charleston County Environmental Management team know — Call: 843.720.1111 Email: publicinfo@charlestoncounty.org Write: 13 Romney Street Charleston, SC 29403 —

Here’s a shot where it looks like someone had some semi-useful items (wood scraps and a used window?), so they left them for “someone else to pick-up.” I bet they got their wish. I like how the glass window is blocking the public bike path – surprise!

Every time I go to my local recycling drop site in Mount Pleasant, I’m reminded why I started this Recycling Fail column. Too often, people are leaving far more than just recycling: trash, pumpkins, leaves, carpets, giant boxes, furniture – it’s a problem. And while it’s fun to see the photos (check out our growing Flickr set), we’ve got to take care of these drop sites so that our community and Charleston County can continue to recycle successfully.

When I visit places like San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, and Montreal, I always notice how progressive the airports and hotels seem (I’ve blogged about this here and here). The hotels I stay in always have programs promoting the reuse of towels, recycling bins rooms, and CFLs in all the lights.

That got me thinking about Charleston’s hotels, and what sustainable practices they are using. I decided to call around and ask the major Charleston hotels five simple questions – the results are in the Hotel Scorecard below.

I asked the hotels if they were doing these five simple things…things that cost relatively little money. Sure it would be nice if hotels were using solar energy, collecting rainwater, and composting, but those things are difficult and expensive to implement. I wanted to see if Charleston hotels were doing any of these simple things, because I see other hotels doing them when I travel.

As you can see, the Charleston hotels aren’t doing much at all. I gotta hand it to the Francis Marion Hotel and Embassy Suites for at least using CFLs and encouraging the reuse of towels, but there’s room for improvement across the board. I mean, two of these hotel chains have web pages bragging about their sustainability efforts (see below). I’d like to see the rest of the hotels adopt a couple of these practices, even if it’s just to save money instead of the planet – I’ll take it.

I’d also like to note that the Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn refused to participate in my survey, citing corporate regulations on discussing these things (OK?) If you have connections at any of these hotels, please pass along this information and ask that they green up their hotels. Look for this report to come out again in one year with updated scores.

What do you all think about this?  Should hotels green up their practices, or is it our responsibility when we travel to do it ourselves?

Let the Hotels Know What You Think

Help us tell these hotels that Charleston deserves greener digs, and that they should be doing a better job as hosts to thousands of tourists each year. Two of these hotels have sustainability sections on their websites talking about all the amazing things they are doing – we call that greenwashing, and it’s not enough. Let them know what you think:

Embassy Suites: phone | email | website | sustainability
Charleston Marriott: phone | email | website | sustainability
Charleston Place Hotel: phone | email | website
Francis Marion Hotel: phone | email | website
The Mills House: phone | email | website
The Market Pavilion: phone | email | website

Homerooms in the Ladson school have been collecting recyclable materials all year — over 60,000 pounds so far — in an effort to win a field trip on the Spirit of South Carolina. Students have also been making recycled paper, donating reusable bags, and creating PSAs for younger kids.

The more our kids learn about reducing our impact, the closer we’ll be to a sustainable future. Cheers to the school, kids, and local business for collaborating in such a positive way. Visit www.RaceToEndWaste.com for more info.

On a recent trip to a Mount Pleasant recycling drop site, it was clear that people were making just as many mistakes with their recycling as they were their trash. And since 2008 was the year of the Fail meme, which has generated its own blog and Wikipedia entry, I thought it might be time to start  a new column: Recycling Fail!

I mean, we’ve all been to one of Charleston County Recycling‘s drop sites and seen the piles of trash people have left – what are they thinking? I’ve even blogged about the serious problems they are having at one of the Mount Pleasant drop sites.

The first pic above is the most interesting, only because they made it all the way to the drop site and THEN failed. I mean, after you know what to recycle, one of the only other rules is to flatten your boxes. It even says so right on the dumpster! FAIL!

And what about the person that left a bag of trash and a pumpkin? A pumpkin??? I wish we had county-sponsored composting, but that doesn’t mean I can toss used holiday fruit wherever I please.  Also note that the pumpkin was discarded in a recyclable bag.

The person who left the mess below clearly scoffs at the rules. They probably drive in the left lane, take 2 newspapers, and sneak home office supplies too. Rules are rules peeps, so lets try to keep the trash in the landfill, not in the middle of a parking lot. I mean, that’s someone’s fence/backyard right there…how would that make you feel?

If you’ve seen some Recycling Fail around town, or even have some pics, please let us know!