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Waste & Recycling News is marking 40 years of curbside recycling with an article that looks back at how modern recycling got its start, from recycling centers in high school parking lots to the first voluntary curbside collections. Among the first leaders were Berkeley citizens who organized to rescue reusable and recyclable materials from the landfill. The Ecology Center formed around these citizen-led activism projects, and forty years on, we still run the curbside recycling program for the City of Berkeley. In the photo above, volunteers led the first curbside collection in Berkeley, picking up newspapers in a truck to bring to a local egg-carton manufacturer. You can learn more about the background and victories of our recycling program here. Recycling continues to evolve, with bold goals for Zero Waste in Berkeley, but it’s worth looking back at how these projects took root and spread to become everyday, common practice. Head to Waste & Recycling News for the full article.