Three years ago, four Copperwood Apartments residents were sitting at a local cafe discussing the lack of green initiatives at their complex. Today, the group is an award-winning, seven-member committee credited with providing recycling services for all 300 units in its community.

“[The program has] grown a lot, and a lot more people are interested in it,” said Carolynn Moore, one of the residents who introduced the program. “At first, it was really iffy, but now it’s just an everyday thing here.”

Moore and the other members of the recycling committee worked with The Woodlands Township Environmental Services Department, as well as apartment management, to attract support for the pilot program.

Carolynn Moore is one of the Copperwood Apartments residents who helped introduce the pilot recycling program to her community.[/caption]

“The percentages of individuals in our country now and in our community that want to recycle is extremely high,” Environmental Services Manager John Geiger said.

The complex now has eight recycling carts located in each of the building’s trash rooms as well as smaller apartment bins residents can keep in their units to collect recyclables throughout the week.

The committee was given the “Volunteer of the Year” award by The Woodlands Township in January for its recycling education efforts.

“They invested a lot of their time and efforts amongst their 300 residents to get them onboard, and they set a very good example for the community,” environmental education coordinator Kathie Herrick said.

According to the township’s Environmental Services Department, multifamily housing comprises 16 percent of all residences in The Woodlands, and the majority of those facilities do not offer a recycling program.

“It’s a huge portion of recycling that we’re missing,” Herrick said. “It hasn’t been addressed at all—not so much even in the city of Houston and definitely not here. We have to be thinking in terms of the circular economy now. Nothing is waste; everything has value.”

Township employees said part of their mission is to continue expanding recycling throughout The Woodlands. However, the department can only do so if all entities are onboard. Moore said she and the rest of the committee hope to continue expanding the program by hosting another recycling fair to further educate residents and gain more participants.

“I just think that we’ve damaged the Earth so much,” Moore said. “I want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be able to survive and at this rate, if it continues, they won’t be able to. When you do recycle, then you become part of the solution instead of part
of the problem.”