A Chat with Good Earth Recycling

Nov 27

Nov 27 Good Earth Recycling

This week we’re continuing an interview series with community leaders in Texas. I’ve spoken with Nick Nowicki, the owner of Good Earth Recycling in Lubbock to get his perspective on recycling tips and living an eco-friendly lifestyle. Good Earth Recycling is a curbside pickup recycling service that operates in Lubbock, Texas, where there is no city pickup for recycling. Lubbock does offer a recycling service, but you have to bring your recyclables from home and sort them at the dropoff center during their business hours. This has been a little frustrating for me since moving to Lubbock (as I discuss in this article), and it was great to find out that someone had already created a solution! Read on to see my discussion with Nick, and check out goodearthrecycle.com to learn more about his business and to sign up!

One of my first questions for Nick was why Lubbock doesn’t have a city recycling pickup program. It turns out that Lubbock has actually tried rolling out these programs a couple times, but they ultimately fizzled out due to less than ideal implementation strategies. Growing up in Dallas, Nick was accustomed to city-wide recycling pickup as an everyday part of his life and was frustrated at how many hurdles to recycling there were when he moved to Lubbock. He (correctly) assumed that other people were also wishing for a better solution, and, being the entrepreneurial type, decided to be the guy that actually does something about it. He conducted surveys and research around town, and once he confirmed his suspicions of the demand, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. Good Earth Recycling has been in business for about three and a half years, and Nick views his business as a proof of concept that he plans to pitch to the city of Lubbock. Essentially, his goal is to parlay Good Earth Recycling into a city contract that will help the 255,885 residents of Lubbock easily incorporate recycling into their lives.

Impressed? I am. Not only is Nick a 20-something successful business owner, I personally see his success as a phenomenal model to others, especially in smaller towns. City governments have a lot on their plates, and honestly, I can’t blame the City of Lubbock for not knocking it out of the park on their first recycling attempts. There are so many different considerations, from what materials you want to recycle, to how to monetize the process, to creating an efficient supply chain … not every city has the resources to sit down and make a plan with help from the experts. Enter: a private business. Nick has created a strong business that gives people the opportunity to live more eco-friendly lifestyles (and donates profits to a scholarship fund at Texas Tech University) and to go the extra mile, he also foresees contracting with local government to bring this opportunity to more people who otherwise might not be able to afford the service. Hats off to everyone who’s working with Nick over at Good Earth Recycling!! If you live in a place that’s lacking a greener option, whether it be recycling or something else, consider how you could turn that vacuum into a business that will not only benefit you, but your community and environment as well.

Over the course of our conversation, Nick answered lots of questions about recycling in general. Have you ever heard that if you put the wrong things into your home recycling container, the whole garbage truck or dumpster of recycling will just go to a landfill? I’ve definitely heard this before, and Nick says the answer is a little column A, a little column B. Part of the process of recycling is multiple rounds of sorting, so some innocent mistakes could still be corrected. On the other hand, spoiled food, lots of dirty materials, or items that are time-consuming to remove from the batch will probably result in the whole batch of materials being thrown away. No worker wants to sort through rotten food, or has the time to patiently re-sort every single item that comes through in recycling trucks. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to put in a bit of effort at home. Nick says “if you don’t know, it’s better to throw,” meaning that if you’re not sure whether something is recyclable IN YOUR CITY (remember, the accepted materials are different for different places!), go ahead and put the item in the trash. I know, I know, I want things to be recyclable too, but “aspirational recycling,” as he calls it, actually does more harm than good. My dad is the king of aspirational recycling. Every few days, I’m pulling a waxed carton or plastic film or a paper towel out of our recycling bin. His intentions are good - who doesn’t want to recycle? - but when you put the wrong things into the bin, you might be jeopardizing a lot of other correct items by making a batch too difficult to sort through.

If you’re an aspirational recycler, education is going to be your best friend. Call up your city’s recycling center, or go to their website and learn what you can and can’t recycle! If you live near Dallas or Fort Worth, check out http://www.timetorecycle.com/knowwhattothrow/#quiz to learn about what’s recyclable there. The official line from North Central Texas is familiar: “when in doubt, throw it out.” It’s safe to say that this is one of the biggest takeaways recycling experts want us to hear.

Lastly, Nick shared his thoughts on living an eco-friendly lifestyle. He’s a big fan of small changes in your life that will start to add up. Think: reusable straws at home and in your purse, reusable grocery bags, and leveling up your recycling game. He also brought up a point that’s been on my mind lately: changes in your personal habits are great, but don’t forget the role of big business in fighting climate change.

“I think the media puts a lot of pressure on the individual to say ‘You shouldn’t be using straws! ... You should recycle!’ but, I think that there’s too much pressure - that the pressure is misplaced on the individual and it should go to businesses. A single business generates so much more waste than an individual will, and it controls what the options for that individual are. You can say ‘don’t use plastic straws,’ but if plastic straws are the only thing on the market, there’s no choice.” — Nick Nowicki

What a great summary. There is tons of pressure on people to “go green” or do this or that, but at the end of the day there’s only so much individuals can do. I absolutely advocate for individuals to take up the cause, but part of what I see as an individual’s responsibility is calling out big businesses. If you only ride a bike for the rest of your life, that’s amazing for your personal carbon footprint, but can you imagine how many people would have to stop driving cars to neutralize the carbon that one company emits? We need change from industries, and we need it now. Write to your elected officials, participate in a climate strike, buy sustainable products. Make your voice (and your money) heard. And in the meantime, continue educating the people around you. A more educated community will naturally shift to make sustainable living commonplace, just like recycling is in most places. Hang in there, Scouts. And maybe print out a chart of what’s recyclable while you’re at it.