PART I

5000 Rain Sage

Los Lunas, NM 87031
(505) 555-5555
recycling@pleaserecycle.com
February 10, 2016

Mrs. Auralie Ashley-Marx

Bureau Chief of Solid Waste
New Mexico Environment Department
1190 St. Francis Drive
Santa Fe, NM 87502-5469

Dear Mrs. Ashley-Marx,

As a consultant for Recyclers of New Mexico, I wanted to bring to your attention of the low
recycling output we have in our state. In our previous recyclers meeting, per your request, I
have researched what our state is lacking and some thoughts on how to accomplish a higher
output of recyclables out of New Mexico. Most importantly, getting our fellow New Mexicans the
capability to understand how recycling works.
The lack of recycling looks to be lacking in convenience (bins & local substations),
understanding, and incentives to recycle.
Here at the Recyclers of New Mexico we strive for a beautiful, clean, waste free, state. This
report shows the methods, limitations to recycling, results of recycling, discussion, and a
conclusion to the issue.
Please review the enclosed report and presentation that outlines our plan in further detail.
Thank you for your time in reviewing this report, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Leanne Francis-Valdez
Consultant & Member
Recyclers of New Mexico

PART II

1. Introduction
Why is there a lack of recycling in New Mexico, opposed to the states like California and
Florida? Do we have a lack of information and bins to do, so? There are a lot of states that
require recycling in that community, and states that want their citizens to willingly recycle. I
believe the reason why our state lacks a greater recycling output is because of three reasons:
convenience, understanding, and incentives.
Recycling has always been a big issue, and why shouldnt it still be? Recycling has come a long
way since the start of recycling in the United States in1897 in New York City, stated by Busch
Systems. We have grown in our machinery and how to properly recycle different goods as paper
, glass, metals, cardboard, and cans, but we have not grown much in our want to recycle. As
you can see from (figure 1) from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)(2014), we
started growing since 1970 and then started plateauing into low recycling percentages in 2010.
New Mexico needs to pull their weight and start recycling and have New Mexicans more
aware of how to do so and give them the means to do so.At the same time, we have never
been very big on recycling in New Mexico, we need to teach New Mexicans how to recycle and
give them a convenient way to achieve this goal.

Figure 1

2. Methods
To prove my thinking on the matter of recycling and to understand more on what other people
felt in my community. I put together questions and I interviewed two of my neighbors in my
community of Los Lunas, New Mexico. One reason I wanted to do this in my community was
that we have no recycling bins or household bins anywhere in our city (I have kept my eye out
for one), so it was a perfect location to interview.
My first interview was on Mr. Michelson, who is a business owner in Truth or Consequences and
the second interview was Mr. Marvel, a security officer employed with the Central New Mexico
Correctional Facility. Keep in mind these gentlemen are very different: attitudes, the way they
live, think, background, careers, etc.

Figure 2

Along with my interviews I found six peer-reviewed academic sources that talk about different
states with and without recycling and recycling and wastes outside of the United States. I also
included the website for The City of Albuquerques Residential Curbside Recycling, that had all
the information on how to recycle and also how to get a recycling bin if you live in the
Albuquerque area. The peer reviewed academic sources I researched were Alternative Policies
to Increase Recycling of Plastic Water Bottles in the United States, Estimating Consumer
Willingness to Supply and Willingness to Pay for Curbside Recycling, Can in Hand: From
Physical Waste Audits, Small Hospitality Business Involvement in Environmentally Friendly
Initiatives, A tale of five cities: Using recycling frameworks to analyze inclusive recycling
performance, and How effective are current household recycling policies? Results from a
national survey of U. S. households. With all these sources I tried to stay on the same type of
topic on how recycling helps other states or businesses and all around information on how
recycling works in other states.
I believe different views and sources about the other states will provide me with the necessary
information to help me to do the best reporting.

3. Limitions
My limitations that I faced in my report would most likely be the time frame I needed to research.
I would have liked to get more interviews in my area and also rural areas of New Mexico as well.
I was fortunate to find two men, with very different views on the matter, willing to participate in
my research.

4. Results
A. Interview
The information I received on my interview corresponded with some of the academic
resources.
In my interviews with Mr. Michelson and Mr. Marvel, gave me the impression of a lack of
incentives in recycling. Both men knew how to separate and use a recycling bin, but they
had no want to recycle. Mr. Marvel repeatedly stated that the state of New Mexico
gives him nothing in return. He had an interesting idea of putting the extra resources
made from recycling to lowering the water and/or gas prices. Mr. Michelson liked the
idea of the town of Los Lunas having their own sub-station or receptacles, and a bin at
his house.
B. Information/Awareness/Knowledge
In Can in Hand, I wanted to learn more about how to recycle and research how to create
a waste audit tool kit. Waste Audit Tool Kits are in house audits we can do on our wastes
to determine how much recyclables out of our normal wastes we can save to recycle. It
is fairly easy and each one that I came across had all the information needed to be
pretty simple. I think if we conducted a waste audit for our households we would be
surprised on how much we can recycle without knowing what we are sending to the
dump.
The review from ONeill and Alonso, gave me information on how the hospitality industry
is turning a new leaf and going green as well. Additionally, it has become increasingly

clear that there are considerable operational and bottom-line benefits for operators in
going green and/or adopting environmentally sensitive practices (ONeill,
"Small Hospitality Business Involvement In Environmentally Friendly Initiatives). I
definitely agree, for businesses to go green and take in recyclables there is money that
can be made and put right back into business owners pockets. New Mexico can really
boost up its numbers not just looking at residential and rural areas but also the
hospitality industry as well; like restaurants and hotels. ONeill and Alonso, note that,
hotels typically represent only about 4-5% of a nations buildings stock, they provide
accommodation to 40-50% of all domestic and international visitorsover 200 million
visitors per year in Europe alonerestaurants alone are among the highest users of
disposable products (ONeill,
"Small Hospitality Business Involvement In Environmentally Friendly Initiatives).
C. Convenience
For instance, Saphores and Nixon states that, recycling behavior is the result of a
diverse set of factors: convince, social norms, and moral considerations lead the way in
terms of importance, followed by environmental awareness, program knowledge, and
environmental concerns. (Saphores, "How Effective Are Current Household Recycling
Policies? Results From A National Survey Of U.S. Households). I believe the big issue
one of my interviewers had was the inconvenience of not having a recycling receptacle
or bin available.
D. Incentive
The other big thing that I came across as well was the recycling initiative. That is a huge
issue in all states, even ours. As the Executive Summary of The Albuquerque Integrated
Waste Management Plan, goes over its weaknesses of its plan it plainly states that there
are no economic incentives for recycling, inconvenient and inefficient recycling
collection, limited household hazardous waste program, no comprehensive education
and outreach program, limited compost market, no city commercial recycling services,
and the list goes on. Everything my neighbors had an issue with, was stated right on
Albuquerques weaknesses.
After conducting my interviews I started researching more on how New Mexico can have
more recycling. The article I got the most information from was Saphores and Nixons
How Effective Are Current Household Recycling Policies? Results From a National
Survey Of U.S. Households. These next two graphs I got from this article, which are
extremely helpful, because its the nations percentage on how much is recycled of
plastic, glass, metals, and aluminum. As you can see on (Figure 1), Aluminum is the
highest in recyclables. I believe that reason is because the incentive for recycling cans is
getting money back, which is paid in pounds.
For (Figure 2), we can see more clearly that Aluminum and Metals are almost the same
percentage until 1990 when Aluminum prices started dropping and people were not able
to get the same amount they were. Metal prices stayed about even, being in metal
recycling for the past four years, I have a little insight on how much market metal prices
are at the time.
The tale of five cities: Using recycling frameworks to analyze inclusive recycling
performance, tells about five different cities rating from low to middle income countries. I
lot of the problem of not recycling goes back to as they state, transfer, and disposal

costs are less compelling motivations, especially when landfilling is not priced. In other
words the middle income countries have to pay for recycling and taking all the trash they
accumulate to the dump, because its free.
Figure 3

5. Discussion
Evidence of your problem
We are down by a significant amount from other states. We dont even show up on any of the
statistics, that our numbers are too low to compete. We do have a lot of rural areas in our state
but that doesnt mean we cannot recycle. I think the people in those rural areas recycle more
then people that live in towns around New Mexico. I say this because when your closest
neighbor is a few miles away, those people need to live off the land and what they are able to
haul in. The city population and rural communities needs to have an incentive and the
convenience to recycle. By giving the community their own recycle bin per household we can up
our recycling in our state.Also, by finding a way to have a better incentive to recycle, I believe
would really boost recycling.
6. Conclusion
As this report shows are all indications of the lack of recycling is caused by three problems:
convenience, incentive, and lack of information. As we have read its not just in New Mexico but
different states as well that are not deposit states.
I believe if we can make recycling a lot more accessible for New Mexicans we can bring our
recycling numbers up and send less trash to the landfills. By accessible I mean having

Figure 4
households everywhere in New Mexico that has trash pick up and in rural areas to have these
bins with their regular trash bins or even receptacles that they can use. The last few years The
City of Elephant Butte works with a local recycling company that sets up large bins for all the
metals and cardboard for anyone to drop off. At the end of the month all the materials collected,
at certain percentage gets paid to The City of Elephant Butte for their local needs. Which gives
the community the convenience of not having to pay at the dump and they only have to drive
down the road.
Albuquerque has made an improvement recently in getting trucks that just pickup up
recyclables, before then they had the workers go out and pick them up by hand.As (Figure 4)
shows, Florida was able to come together and work out a system that has almost their whole
state recycle. Each one of those numbers represents the days that the recycling trucks will
come by to pick up. California is one of those states as well that has a massive recycling
community, their graph would look like (Figure 3), because they are a deposit state, thus
bringing in a lot of recyclables. If we can have a larger output of metals, our state should be able
to give the public an incentive worth recycling for. All the recyclables that are collected can be
sold by market cost, that alone can pay for the workers needed, the bins, the trucks, and
centers.
Recycling not only helps the environment but can also bring in money for The State of New
Mexico.The more recycling our state does the more we can give back into our state for other

things. Like having commercials put out that teaches people how to recycle, or having some sort
of community meeting on how to properly recycle.

Works Cited
1. ONeill, Martin A., Alonso, Abel D. "Small Hospitality Business Involvement In
Environmentally Friendly Initiatives. Tourism & Hospitality: Planning & Development 6.3
(2009): 221-234. GreenFILE. Web. 23 Feb. 2016
2. Musser, Jordan, et al. "Can In Hand: From Physical Waste Audits To Creating A
Customizable Simple Waste Audit (SWA) Toolkit." Journal Of Solid Waste Technology &
Management 36.1 (2010): 578-585. Environment Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
3. Scheinberg, Anne., Simpson, Michael. "A Tale Of Five Cities: Using Recycling Frameworks
To Analyse Inclusive Recycling Performance." Waste Management & Research: The Journal
Of The International Solid Wastes & Public Cleansing Association, ISWA 33.11 (2015):
975-985. Environment Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
4. Saphores, Jean-Daniel M., and Hilary Nixon. "How Effective Are Current Household
Recycling Policies? Results From A National Survey Of U.S. Households." Resources,
Conservation & Recycling 92.(2014): 1-10. Environment Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2016
5. Koford, Brandon C., et al. "Estimating Consumer Willingness To Supply And Willingness To
Pay For Curbside Recycling." Land Economics 88.4 (2012): 745-763. EconLit with Full Text.
Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
6. Viscusi, W. Kip, Joel Huber, and Jason Bell. "Alternative Policies To Increase Recycling Of
Plastic Water Bottles In The United States." Review Of Environmental Economics And Policy
6.2 (2012): 190-211. EconLit with Full Text. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
7. The City of Albuquerque. Residential Curbside Recycling, 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.
8. The City of Albuquerque. Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department.Executive
Summary Albuquerque Integrated Waste Management Plan.2008. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.cabq.gov/solidwaste/documents/executive_summary2.pdf>

Appendix
(i) Interviews:
Mr. Alexander Michelson - Home owner in Huning Ranch, Los Lunas, Business owner in T or C
(Referred as A)
Mr. Nicholas Marvel - Home owner in Huning Ranch, Los Lunas, New Mexico, Security Officer
at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (Referred as N)
(The names of my interviewees have been changed for privacy purposes.)
1. Do you know how to separate the recyclables from your regular trash?
A: Yes
N: Yes
2. If a Recycle bin was available with your regular trash bin, would you make use of it?
A: Yes
N: No
3. What kind of incentives would you like to get out of recycling?
A: Money to go back to the city I live in
N: Cheaper electricity and other bills
4. If each small town in New Mexico including ours, had a sub-station or center would you take
advantage of their services?
A: Yes
N: No
5. What do you know of the recycling industry?
A: A lot
N: There cheaters
6. Do you know that recycling can give back to our community not only through keeping it
clean?
A: Yes
N: Yes
7. Why do you think New Mexico lacks on recycling?
A: Yes, and a lot of other things. I think this because there is so much rural area between
cities
N: Yes, in everything
8. Why do you think other states have more recycling in their communities opposed to our
states communities and small towns?
A: The large rural areas in our state.
N: Because most of them give back NM doesnt
9. Where was the last place in New Mexico you have seen a recycling bin or receptacle?

A: In T or C
N: At the Prison
10. Have you ever used a recycling bin or receptacle or did you just throw all your trash into one
bin?
A: Yes
N: No, threw all my trash into one bin