Sustainable Roanoke

a grassroots environmental group in Roanoke, Virginia

Mission

To educate, inspire, and empower the community to achieve a sustainable lifestyle by sharing knowledge, increasing awareness, pooling resources, and promoting social equity.

Vision

A clean, safe, and healthy community based on a circular economy that respects and protects people and the natural environment equally.

SR Recyclables

Updating

Other recycling options

Get Involved

Donate

Recycling Quiz

We have adopted a STreet!

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

FIRST CLEAN-UP: Sat, April 6th from 9:30-11:30am

Sustainable Roanoke has adopted a portion of Williamson Road to keep clean! Will you join us? Clean Valley Council will provide the orange trash bags, litter grabbers, and safety vests. You bring your gloves and appropriate clothing.

Get more info and SIGN UP TO VOLUNTEER here.

REMINDER:

*Sustainable Roanoke is No Longer Holding

Recycling Collection Events*

Why?
Our collection events helped educate and build a community, however they were never intended to be a solution to the growing problem of single-use plastics in our valley.

Please do continue to recycle your metal, paper, and glass when you can, and compost your food waste (see our Recyclables pages for more info), but we must figure out how to reduce the amount of plastics made, and reduce our dependence upon, and consumption of, these momentary conveniences.

Although our recycling events helped keep some plastic out of the landfill, the volume of plastic we were recycling was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the volume of single-use plastic produced and used everyday in our city and county. Whereas the time and energy expended for each of these events, and after, far exceeded the benefits and more significantly, did not promote long-term sustainability.

In addition, storage and transportation out of state, and finding recycling facilities willing to accept our collected items, was challenging and not always available. The all-volunteer board agreed we could not maintain this process.

Fact: Single-use plastics are a problem. Some of these items (plastic ware, straws, drink bottles, cups, etc) are only used once, and for only a few minutes, and then need to be dealt with, and they most often get thrown away, or end up as litter, and in our waterways. Every year 20-33 billion pounds of plastic enter our oceans. By 2025, for every 3 lbs of fish there will be 1 lb of plastic.
By 2050, if we don't change things, there will be more plastic than fish.

Fact: These plastics are made with fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, they break down in sunlight. Micro plastics have been found in our seafood, mother’s milk, and inside the human heart, and 653 other species are affected by these tiny pieces of our waste.

Fact: Only 5-6% of plastics actually get recycled, but we are producing more and more every day. Since 1950 we have created 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic, and half of that was made in the last 19 years. 367 metric tonnes of plastic was made in 2020 alone.

We need to find alternatives. We are not going to recycle our way out of this problem.