As the American economy continues its remarkable and robust transition into the post-industrial era, more and more jobs and opportunities will be concentrated in the clean industries of the future. Community and economic development through recycling can and should be one engine of economic growth in our communities. Our goal is to make recycling create more jobs in our communities and further strengthen our economy.

New Jobs from Old Wood

The Materials for the Future Foundation, with the Revolving Loan Fund, has loaned out over $1.8 million to 15 businesses, leveraged over $4 million in partner financing, created or retained over 450 jobs and diverted over 85,000 tons per year of materials. The Materials for the Future Foundation is at work to do more in response to the National Recycling Challenge.

From a recently awarded grant of $500,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Community Services, the Foundation, partnering with national and local organizations, established an integrated reclaimed wood mill and retail yard in the San Francisco Bay Area. The mill is supporting eight community-based, mostly nonprofit, deconstruction enterprises by purchasing reclaimed wood for remanufacturing and resale. The mill will create jobs for 60-65 individuals and training for as many as 300 low-income individuals. The jobs will offer an avenue into the relatively high-paying construction trades. The mill is expected to strengthen local reclaimed wood markets and facilitate the development of enterprises that use reclaimed wood.

1,500 Jobs

The Sustainable Jobs Fund is a new community development venture capital fund developed with the assistance of the National Recycling Coalition. The National Recycling Coalition is a 20-year old nonprofit trade association with over 4,500 members. The Fund has raised $17 million in funds to date from MBNA America Bank (Delaware), Citibank, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, First Union Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Dakota Foundation, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The Fund, in partnership with the National Recycling Coalition, had received grants from the First Union Regional, Citicorp, Z. Smith Reynolds, and Turner Foundations to support business outreach, research, and assistance services.

In association with the National Recycling Coalition, the Sustainable Jobs Fund's goal is the creation of more than 1,500 jobs as a result of its investments and additional capital leverage in growth enterprises that create quality jobs in economically distressed neighborhoods in the eastern United States. The strategic focus is on recycling, remanufacturing, and environmental industry sectors that are uniquely suited to generating employment for former welfare recipients and low-income individuals. To date, SJF portfolio companies have committed to creating 629 new quality manufacturing jobs, along with retaining at least 502 jobs that might have been lost without SJF's investment. In addition, portfolio companies have agreed to provide health insurance benefits for employees.

New Opportunities for Chicagoans

Chicago's recycling success begins with programs, policies, and collection systems tailor-made for each component of a big-city waste stream. As a result of its Blue Bag recycling program and the Commercial and High Density Residential Recycling Ordinance, Chicagoans recycled over 47 percent of their waste 1999.

As part of its commitment to the National Recycling Challenge, the City of Chicago doubled the Chicago Housing Authority Buy-Back program to include all 28 family developments and 50 senior centers. The CHA Buy Back program is an economic development initiative that offers vouchers redeemable at local grocery stores in exchange for recyclables.

In addition to expanding its CHA Buy Back program, Chicago established recycling programs at each of its three airports, reaching over 80 million people annually.

Recycling Electronics and Creating Jobs

The U.S. Postal Service practices "good earthkeeping" in a number of ways. In 1998, USPS recycled more than one million tons of wastepaper, corrugated, plastics, and other materials and generated more than $5 million in revenue from recycling. USPS also closes the recycling loop by purchasing more than $160 million worth of recycled content products, including envelopes used for overnight mail and sold to retail customers, building construction products, and re-refined oil and retread tires for the fleet. USPS also operates the nation's largest alternative fuel delivery fleet.

For the National Recycling Challenge, USPS committed to three projects to find recycling and reuse alternatives to landfilling used electronic equipment. First, USPS and Per Scholas (a foundation committed to furnishing new and refurbished computers to schools) are collaborating on recycling computers in a computer demanufacturing facility in the South Bronx, New York. USPS will supply used computer equipment, and Per Scholas will train and employ dozens of unskilled workers. Parts from the computers will be then be used to assemble new computers to be sold exclusively to schools and housing authorities. The demanufacturing facility will open in January, 2000.

Second, USPS contracted with Goodwill Industries of Austin, TX to process 30,000 used terminals. Over 95 percent of the terminals are saved for use, with the remaining terminals disassembled by Waste Management, Inc. for resource recycling.

Third, USPS is collaborating with Ryzex, Inc. of Bellingham, WA to sell 10,000 used bar code scanners, providing an economical alternative to landfilling the scanners. Ryzex will refurbish and reprogram the scanners so they can be used for applications such as asset and file tracking. USPS will arrange for special discounts to be offered to hospitals, schools, libraries, and other community organizations.

Jobs in Paper Recycling

American Fiber Resources (AFR) takes the Vice President's Challenge by bringing new life to an idle paper recycling mill. Over 100 new jobs were created along with dozens of additional support related jobs within food services, construction, contractors, and trucking in the local community. AFR restarted the Fairmont, West Virginia paper recycling mill, improving the efficiency, and diverting 900 metric tons per day of waste paper from going to landfills across the United States. AFR receives recovered paper from several sources, such as the Northern West Virginia Recycling Cooperative, a organization which provides recovered paper from over 15 different counties in West Virginia.

AFR uses the recovered material to produce 600 metric tons per day of premium quality recycled pulp that is used in xerographic papers, forms, envelopes, and magazine-grade coated paper grades, and other paper grades. As an added environmental benefit, the mill uses peroxide, rather than chlorine bleaching. In addition, AFR is recovering material from its wastewater treatment system and turning it into 290 metric tons per day of beneficial residual material used for land reclamation projects in West Virginia. AFR is committed to using unwanted material destined for landfills in a manner and means that is useful to the community and the country.