Elect Corey Zinn

I created this RECYCLING GUIDE in-kind for Charleston with help from city staff. I don't believe it got into people's hands, and there's been so much confusion after the clear bag distribution discontinued.

We saved a lot of money and waste by nixing the clear bags. Now, you can put all your dry mixed recycling into a container on your curb and the City Recycling will dump all of it into their truck. Trust me, I see them do it all the time. The bags had always been thrown out, just creating more unnecessary plastic, so no bags is a good thing.

BUT the bags were the main recycling guide we had. It told us what you can recycle in Charleston and how, so I created this simple guide to reduce any confusion and to confirm that we do still recycle in Charleston.

AND it's so important to recycle correctly. Because if we don't, entire batches can be ruined, and dollars per ton are lost as we send it to Beckley hoping it is recycling but then it is audited and thrown out. It's all a huge waste if those materials weren't recyclable.

I hope to work with the City of Charleston to create our own recycling facility. When we live in the Chemical Valley making plastics, it seems extremely achievable.

The city can also be creating revenue in years to come by working with the Office of Sustainability and creating compost from the city's waste. Currently, our farmers are getting nearly all their compost from out of state. This is big business!

Please let me know if you have any questions about recycling in Charleston. I hope this guide tells you the fundamentals of what you need to know. It's important there isn't any food waste or liquids in your recyclables. Metals are costly to mine and produce, so they are extremely important to recycle, so we don't use more oil and mine more natural resources. And don't feel bad if you can't recycle something, it's important not to ruin the good recyclables and EXTREMELY IMPORTANT we get trash in a properly managed landfill if it's not going to be recycled.

So throwing your trash away is doing your part, too!

The FUTURE is already here in Charleston...

I've worked with world class experts in our area in technology— attended Hacker Cons, Raspberry Jams, Linux User Groups, meet ups, pitch events, workshops, boot camps...

We have a technology workforce here, most of which works out of state or out of the country. Because their skills are more trusted, understood, and valued elsewhere. They love living in West Virginia close to the land and take advantage of the solitude we find here to CREATE.

I'd like to see people in power that understand the power of technology and the new economy. We need to empower entrepreneurs, tinkerers, educators, and trust them to create a community that is awe inspiring and revenue generating!

I've got countless photos like this in the Charleston area. The future is here. We just need to give it power.