>>ANNOUNCER: Promoting a healthy environment.
It's the air we breathe.
Clean, safe water.
Responsible management of our natural resources.
We protect and restore - for a sustainable future.
Environment Matters.
>>Clement Solomon: "We felt that there was a need to take a holistic approach to sustainability
and institutionalize it from the senior leadership as well as all the way down to the operational
level."
>>NARRATION: A look at how West Virginia's two largest universities are incorporating
sustainability principles into everyday campus life -- Plus:
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: "We don't throw things that are valuable into our landfills.
We don't waste resources and we try to do what's smart -- not just for today but for
our future."
>>NARRATION: The DEP hands out more than two million dollars in recycling grants to help
communities all across the state with their recycling programs...
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Hello everybody and welcome to Environment Matters.
I'm Greg Adolfson with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
For more than 20 years, the DEP has partnered with communities to start, grow and sustain
local recycling programs through its annual recycling grant program.
The DEP's Tom Aluise has more.
>>NARRATION: Forty groups from twenty nine West Virginia counties were honored at a recent
reception here at DEP headquarters.
This year's grant recipients will share 2.2 million dollars.
Grants were awarded to state solid waste authorities, county commissions, municipalities, private
industries and nonprofit organizations.
Since its beginning twenty two years ago, the REAP program has awarded more than 33
million dollars to programs all across the state.
The program is funded through a one dollar fee per ton of waste hauled to landfills in
the state.
DEP Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman thanked the group for their efforts...
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: "I've worked with a lot of folks at the local level from all areas of
the state and I've seen what kind of difference that energetic, hardworking people that are
doing the right things for the right reasons can make.
Whatever it is that needs to be done to make things better really has to start on the ground
within the communities in which you live and work and what we try to do here at DEP is
be partners with that.
Two million dollars a year is not going to solve our recycling problems.
It's not going to create a robust recycling program in and of itself and certainly, from
Charleston, state government can't do that for you -- but you can do it with a little
help and that's what we're doing here."
>>NARRATION: Money from the DEP grant program can be used by the groups to help leverage
additional grant funding so that the two million awarded this year can be the seed money for
many more millions in resources -- money that can be used to pay for personnel, equipment,
transportation and perhaps most importantly -- education and outreach.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: "Still garbage laying around.
There's still trash that needs to be cleaned up but just the mindset of our citizens -- I
think it's changed and I think it started with the amount of education we're doing with
our children.
We had a lot of school programs.
We've spent a lot of time and effort to try and educate the younger generation who are
now young adults and they have a completely different way of viewing how these kinds of
things are preferred to be done.
It's not just from the standpoint of not throwing your trash over the hill.
That was the first objective but very quickly the culture has transformed into that of resource
management to include recycling which is a big part of what you all are here about today
so that we don't throw things that are valuable into our landfills.
We don't waste resources and we try to do what's smart -- not just for today but for
our future."
>>NARRATION: A future that leads to a cleaner West Virginia.
In Charleston, I'm Tom Aluise for Environment Matters.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Secretary Huffman says the amount of waste entering West Virginia landfills
has actually decreased significantly over the last 20 years -- from over 2 million tons
a year in the mid-eighties to roughly one and a half million tons annually now...
Finding a place to dispose of those old televisions, computers and tablets in an environmentally
responsible way has always been a challenge.
Since 2011, it's been illegal to dispose of what's called a "covered electronic device"
-- basically anything with a video screen bigger than 4 inches -- into a West Virginia
landfill and that's where electronics recycling events like one held recently here at DEP
headquarters can help.
The DEP's Sarah Alford joins us now with the details.
>>SARAH ALFORD: Greg, you'll find them gathering dust in basements, garages and back rooms
all across the state -- those once cutting edge pieces of electronics made obsolete by
the newest, latest technology.
>>NARRATION: They came in cars, vans and trucks...
>>VALERIE BONE: "Opportunity to get rid of some hard drives and some monitors and printers
that we've had in our basement for ages."
>>NARRATION: A steady stream of old tube televisions, obsolete computers and all manner of worn
out, broken, unwanted electronics...
Large... and not so large...
>>RECYCLER "I need some help...
I'm so proud of him -- this is all he had but he was kind enough not to just throw it
out into the environment.
He wanted to bring it here where it would be disposed of properly."
>>JIM CORDAS: "We'll take all these trailer loads back to Cincinnati, take it to our processing
center.
We'll put it through the shredders.
Shred the equipment.
Send metals in one direction, aluminum in another direction -- we'll send gold and other
precious metals in another direction -- they all go to the smelters.
>>NARRATION: Jim Cordas is with 2-TRG, the recycling company that's handling the disposal
from today's event...
>>JIM: The monitors, we have to cut the glass.
Send leaded glass to a smelter that is certified to process the lead in the glass.
Clean glass, we'll send to a different smelter.
Green boards that are in computers, we'll take that and smelt that down to get the metals
off of that.
We're one of the few companies in the area that are certified to be an e-steward and
that's a national organization that is above and beyond EPA regulated recyclers so we make
sure that nothing gets exported over to other countries, nothing goes into landfills so
everything is reclaimed out of the equipment."
>>NARRATION: And that's important because these devices contain things like mercury,
lead and other hazardous materials -- things that, if not properly handled, could escape
into the environment...
>>DANNY HAUGHT: We know for a fact that they're going to the right place.
They're going to the proper places.
They're not going over a hillside...
>>SARAH ALFORD: Turnout for this year's event was down from last year, but organizers say
that's not a bad thing.
State law actually requires waste haulers to pick up televisions and computers and landfill
operators to hold them until they can be hauled off by a qualified electronics recycler -- although
that sometimes involves a surcharge -- and organizers say many consumers are taking advantage
of that.
Greg, these free events are still quite popular -- about 30 thousand pounds of electronics
were hauled off from this one.
For Environment Matters, I'm Sarah Alford.
>>GREG: Thanks, Sarah.
The state has set up a website to help consumers, waste haulers and landfill operators navigate
the process.
You can find it by searching e-waste West Virginia.
We have a link to it on the Environment Matters Google + page.
One of the best ways to reduce the amount of material that goes into our landfills is
by recycling but that's not the only benefit.
As we first told you back in August, schools in Raleigh County are turning their trash
into cash.
The program has been so successful, it's become a model for the rest of the state and so we
thought it was worth another look.
The DEP's Mike Huff has their story.
>>NARRATION: The recycling center at the Raleigh County Landfill is a busy place -- due in
no small part to the steady stream of material from 37 recycling bins placed at schools throughout
the county.
Started in 2001, the program has grown from 11 schools and 47 tons of recyclables to more
than 30 schools and nearly 400 tons this past school year --
St. Francis School in Beckley was one of those original 11 schools.
Karen Wynne is the principle.
>>Reporter question: Why did you guys decide to get involved with the program?
>>KAREN WYNNE: Well, have you met Sherrie Hunter?
She's very persuasive."
>>NARRATION: Sherrie Hunter is Director of Education for the Raleigh County Solid Waste
Authority and, frankly, a force of nature.
She says the numbers have exceeded even her most optimistic estimates...
>>SHERRIE HUNTER: "We knew, we knew that we were on the verge of something that was going
to evolve and become much, much bigger.
So now I'm going to fast forward.
In twelve school years, we have cumulatively recycled 37-hundred tons of recycling and
schools have earned $169,000 dollars from what would have been in the trash."
>>NARRATION: The schools recycle newspaper, cardboard, office paper, aluminum cans and
plastics.
Each classroom has a recycling bin and students are taught what goes in -- and what doesn't...
>>KAREN: "You know, your homework that you didn't want to take home to mom doesn't necessarily
go in there but any paper and tear down boxes and things like that, they do.
We also do plastic bottles because the kids often have those kinds of things in the classroom..."
>>NARRATION: But the program is about more than recycling and financial benefits.
It's teaching a life lesson...
>>KAREN: "it's part of our character education.
We're citizens of the Earth so we are stewards of the Earth.
So we're trying to get across to the students to be respectful of our environment and part
of that is by not littering, by not cluttering the landfill with things that don't need to
be there..."
>>SHERRIE: " So it's important for us educators to make sure that children embrace that and
inspire them that they can do something individually you can make a difference one little milk
jug at a time, one little piece of paper at a time.
Because then you've kind of started -- that's your behavior modification starting off when
you're real, real young.
And you go ooh I've been a part of recycling for how long?
For all of my life.
>>NARRATION: And that message is getting through...
>>MORGAN WILLIAMS: "It's very important because unless we want our earth to become a giant
trash pile then we need to recycle.
We recycle at my house definitely so every person even if they have to drive like 17
miles to get to where they're going to recycle everyone needs to recycle."
>>NARRATION: In Beckley, I'm Mike Huff for Environment Matters.
>>GREG: The program also helps folks who live outside Beckley where curbside recycling is
not an option.
They can, and do, bring their recyclables to the school which helps their local schools
to earn more money.
Organizers say it helps get the whole community involved.
Coming up: >>MARGIE PHILLIPS: "we looked at recycling
first and we've let everything expand out from that point."
>>NARRATION: A look at how West Virginia college campuses are getting greener: We'll check
in with Marshall and WVU -- the state's two biggest universities and see how the message
of sustainability is becoming an integral part of campus life.
Plus: How switching to more energy efficient Christmas
decorations can make a difference you can see -- and feel.
Those stories and more when Environment Matters continues...