Traverse City, Michigan is a great place to visit, but what many people don’t know is that this area is home to Bay Area Recycling for Charities (BARC). BARC is a nonprofit organization that offers recycling services to their area. All profits will go towards local nonprofits, so people are not only doing the right thing by recycling materials that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill, but they are also helping to support many different, local charities.
BARC offers many options to help make recycling a no brainer in this area. In the rural areas they have a curbside collection program and for businesses the will go in and help set up recycling stations for them. When it comes to the organic side of recycling, BARC collects ten tons of local food waste. They compost it and even sell compostable material. Some of these materials include plates, forks, napkins, and even to go containers for restaurants and local events/festivals. BARC also did not shy away from the industrial side of recycling. They recycle 25,000 mattresses a year and even refrigerators. Any recycling program can find success like BARC has, especially if they are convenient. BARC knows that convenience is key for getting people to recycle. They want to make it cheap and easy for people to recycle.
One way to make it easy for people to recycle is through education. BARC has an amazing board of directors that participate in many committees to help the organization succeed. When they look towards the future, the education, fundraising, and marketing committees are working hard to develop universal education packages that are MEEP designed, K-12 education. This program will teach kindergarteners what recycling is, first graders what paper is, second graders what plastic is, third graders what glass is, and so on for each grade, until coming together, full circle, as high school seniors.
With so many committees working together to stay on top of this education program, the staff and other committees have time to focus on another goal, to create a waste to energy facility that turns mixed plastics back into energy for electricity and heat. BARC hopes to continue to grow and support these goals for better recycling in Michigan.
