I recently drove my 2019 Chevy Equinox down to Bowling Green, KY. It was manufactured with the fuel economy standards set by President Obama. These standards were established to reduce the amount of CO2 that is put into the atmosphereby the transportation sector. Transportation now puts more CO2 into the air than the CO2 produced by heating and cooling buildings.

First, I will tell you thatI do drive with an eye on conserving fuel. I only drive 65 mph even when the speed limit is 70 mph. The total mileage for the round trip was about 960 miles and almost all highway driving. I achieved 42 miles per gallon with my Equinox SUV. About 8 years ago I was getting the same mileage with my compact 2004 Chevy Cavalier. Until 2013 I was happy to get 32 miles per gallon with my Chevy HHR,which is substantially smaller than the Equinox.

You can see that fuel economy standards have done a great job of pushing the car manufacturers to improve vehicle fuel economy. At 42 miles per gallon with the Equinox I used about 23 gallons of gas for the trip. If I had been driving my 2008 HHR I would have used about 30 gallons of gasoline. So in this one trip I didn’t burn 7 gallons of fuel that I would have before the fuel standards were improved by President Obama. That is about 1/5^th fewer green house gases that were put into the air.It also saved me about $17.50 for the entire trip. That is figuring $2.50 per gallon of gas.

At this time President Trump is planning to roll back the fuel standards put in place by President Obama. If that happens we will be paying more money and polluting the air more for the same vacation trip. Over time you drive a vehicle, say 90,000 miles, you would save $1575 dollars in $2.50 per gallon gas. Even more importantly you are polluting the air 20% less than you would be without fuel economy standards. With the planet in Climate Crisis it is extremely important to reduce the green house gases that we put into the atmosphere by extending vehicle fuel economy standards instead of rolling them back.

Please call your Representative and Senators to let them know they should oppose the roll back of vehicle fuel economy standards.

East Peoria Green was pleased to assist Central Junior High School with their Help-A-Thon activity.  The students we worked with are named in the picture.  In the candid photos you can see that we all picked up and separated both trash and recyclables along the Riverfront Park area of East Peoria.  By the time we were done we had a great deal of both recyclables and trash to put where it belongs.   East Peoria Green thanks the students for their help in caring for the environment.  

East Peoria green members Linda and Bob painted the recycling toters at the football stadium so they look more like recycling toters the city is using.  Please watch for them at the games and recycle aluminum cans and plastic bottles only.

East Peoria’s Green Team took a tour of the new PDC Recycling Center out on the edge of Pekin.  We were accompanied by Mark Hill, one of the new East Peoria City Councilmen.  The tour was set up by Corie Bartley, one of our members who works at Waste Management.  PDC has a state of the art process that includes materials separation by machines and by workers on the line.  They were very efficient separating the materials so that one type of material was not contaminated by another.  The workers and managers that lead the tour were very helpful and informative. East Peoria Green members all learned a lot about the processes.  Recycling is now more complicated since American materials are not shipped overseas, but are processed here in America.

Area Recycling New Equipment Launch from Green Shoe Creative on Vimeo.

Here are some general guidelines you can use and/or distribute that will help you recycle more effectively. As with everything, there are exceptions to these rules… mostly based on where you live and what terms have been negotiated by your municipality. We’ve found that the following guidelines are fairly universal:

Best Practices:

1. Don’t enclose any recyclables in bags. Leave them loose in the cart for better sorting.
2. Don’t put anything organic in your recycle bin (food, scraps, leftovers, etc.)
3. Don’t put anything stained with food residue or oils in your recycle bin (pizza boxes, fast food containers, soiled paper plates, etc.)
4. Don’t put any wet paper or cardboard in your recycle bin. Wet fiber does not separate properly in our sorting machine.
5. Please quickly rinse out all plastic containers to eliminate any organic contamination. 

Do Recycle:

1. Cardboard
   • cereal boxes
   • corrugated boxes
2. Paper
   • Newspapers/magazines/catalogs/mail
   • Copy/printer paper
   • Paperback books
3. Plastic bottles (Caps may be on bottles, otherwise throw them in the trash. Do not recycle loose caps.)
   • Clear, green or blue water or soda bottles (PET, recycle symbol #1)
   • Translucent (standard) Milk Jugs (HDPE Natural, recycle symbol #2)
   • Opaque colored containers, such as laundry detergent, bleach and shampoo bottles (HDPE Colored, recycle symbol #2)
4. Aluminum cans
   • Beverage cans
   • Clean aluminum foil/trays
5. Tin cans
   • Soup cans
   • Fruit/vegetable cans

Don’t Recycle: 

1. Glass
   • Beverage bottles
   • Food jars
   • servingware
2. Plastic bags
   • Grocery bags
   • Kitchen/garbage bags
   • Freezer/sandwich bags
   • Frozen food packaging
3. Styrofoam/expanded foam
   • Clamshell containers
   • Fast food packaging
4. Fabrics/textiles
   • Clothes
   • Blankets
5. Tanglers (wire, coat-hangers, extension cords, hoses)
6. Batteries (especially Lithium)
7. Safe Sharps (syringes, razor blades, needles)