Top Story>>Remembering the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By Airman 1st Class Rochelle R. Clace
19th Airlift Wing, Public Affairs

As time goes on, people are becoming more aware of the environmental concerns surrounding them and they are putting forth more effort to come up with solutions for saving the planet.

The Air Force has implemented the Environmental Management System, as required by all federal facilities, to help aid in the mission to support environmental progression and engage local communities.

An Environmental Management System is the framework world-class organizations use to manage their environmental programs. An EMS is a structure of framework used to determine the impact the installation is having on the environment; identify and evaluate environmental risks; organize environmental responsibilities across the installation; evaluate the effectiveness of environmental programs; and refine and continually improve the process and plan for the future.

The Air Force modeled their EMS on the Organization for Standardization 14011 standard. This framework allows the Air Force to fully meet the intent of the executive order, retain the vigor of the internationally proven standard and maintain a certain degree of flexibility to account for unique and militarily significant requirements.

The Little Rock Air Force Base Environmental Policy states that it’s committed to conducting its national security mission in an environmentally responsible manner that will protect human health, natural resources and the environment. In doing so, base personnel will operate in a manner that preserves and protects the environment through pollution prevention, the continual improvement of our operations and complying with regulations while we strive to reduce pollution at the source of generation.

The focus is not on “What does EMS stand for” but the idea that Little Rock AFB cares for the environment. The base has adopted a new acronym, H.E.R.C., which stands for Handle Environmental Resources Carefully. The first step in doing this is remembering the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Mr. Ronnie Shaw, 19th Civil Engineer Squadron pollution prevention manager and EMS coordinator, explained that H.E.R.C. implies the importance of protecting the environment’s natural resources and it requires forethought and planning, such as EMS.

“Practicing and living by the three R's takes the strain off and preserves our natural resources. Recycling and [reusing] reduces the need for landfill expansion which saves greenspace. If we are reducing the amount of energy used, we have lowered the pollutants that enter the atmosphere during the production of energy,” said Mr. Shaw.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, waste prevention, also known as source reduction, is the practice of designing, manufacturing, purchasing or using materials, such as products and packaging, in ways that reduce the amount of toxicity of trash created.

“When we replace a toxic chemical with a less toxic chemical, it’s back to the supply and demand. We’re showing chemical suppliers that we have an interest in less toxic and greener chemicals and it will encourage them to develop more products to help follow that trend,” said Mr. Shaw.

Reusing items is another way to stop waste at the source because it delays or avoids that item's entry in the waste collection and disposal system, as stated by the EPA website.

“It means using an item for something else, such as taking your Commissary bags back to the Commissary and using them a second time,” he said.

Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources, according to the EPA Web site.

“Recycling is basically the recovery of a material for reprocessing into another product,” said Mr. Shaw. “The best example is aluminum cans. It takes less energy to take an aluminum can, recycle it and make a new aluminum can then it does to basically process aluminum ore and recast a can from scratch.”

The way the recycling triangle works is that someone has to make a product out of recycled goods, than somebody has to buy that product and then recycle again to get that raw material back into the loop, he said.

He explained that one of the benefits to the recycling triangle is that materials are being diverted from the landfill. It takes less energy to reprocess materials then it does to process something from a natural resource.

“Landfills are like prisons, nobody wants them in their own backyards, but we have to have them,” he said.

“On average, for the last three to four years, we’ve diverted 40 percent of our total generated waste into the recycling industry rather then it going to the landfill. There have been some months that we’ve recycled as much as 45 to 50 percent of all the waste generated on base,” said Mr. Shaw.

The Little Rock AFB Recycling Center drive-thru service accepts plastic, newspaper, junk mail, electronics, office paper, magazines, scrap metal, metal and aluminum cans, lead acid batteries, cooking oil, cardboard, phone books and glass. For more information on keeping The Rock green contact the Recycling Center at 987-6611.