So much of our activity is online nowadays. We receive bills, advertisements, coupons, and other content via email constantly. There are also countless pop-up ads, social media advertisements in our regular news feeds, and more. That said, we still get plenty of tangible direct mail in our mailboxes. It could be a card, letter, or something special, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas cards, family letters, photo cards, gifts from grandma, etc. On the flip side, there’s also unsolicited direct mail—some of which we toss in the nearest trash bin. While this is a common practice shared by many, the reality is that those items fill our landfills and use valuable resources. This begs the question: How can we reduce the amount of mail that comes to this sad demise through paper recycling?

Once we have done our part recycling in our homes and businesses, many of us do not give another thought to what happens next to our recyclable materials and even what people do at a recycling center. That is not meant to be a criticism; it is just that we tend to focus on the benefits we see and hear the most. For example, everywhere we turn, the battle cry is to minimize pollution and preserve our natural resources. By reusing materials in existing products—cardboard, paper, metals, etc.—we are bettering our environment. Basically, let’s all do our part in protecting the planet, right?

Protecting the environment isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. As awareness of climate change, air quality, and sustainability becomes mainstream, employees and consumers are seeking greener workplaces and products. Meanwhile, corporations are responding by seeking more ways to enter the commercial recycling space and become greener, more sustainable, and more environmentally conscious.

Here are examples of larger companies going green and doing more for commercial recycling efforts.

The current recycling system has lingering challenges to address if we hope to improve the future of recycling and, in turn, help our community and environment by reducing the number of recyclable materials needlessly ending up in landfills worldwide. Unfortunately, many municipal recycling programs are being discontinued due to an oversupply of recyclables and the costs of processing them for municipalities. This is true even as societal awareness to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle grows by leaps and bounds.