Marine Corps is Always Faithful, Always Recycling
The Marine Corps is known to be the first on the front lines, but they also are the first of the armed forces to change the endless cycle of wasting. Over the last decade the Corps has taken great strides to change how they handle solid waste and recyclable materials, especially on their larger posts. The Corps has become more involved in proper disposal methods; in California, Camp Pendleton generated well over 100 tons of waste and is dedicated to changing.
Like Camp Pendleton, U.S. Marine bases across the continental United States and even abroad have grown more conscious of the waste that is produced. Qualified Recycling Programs have been enacted in order to reduce the amount of trash entering the base’s landfills, from the training facilities to the households, this program has revolutionized and saved thousands of items from merely being tossed out. Most bases have been equipped and making strides in pollution prevention, energy conservation, health and safety requirements, and recycling sorting. Through constant assessments of how to operate greener, the Marine Corp is now placing recycling bins on bases and compact plastics on site, shredding all sensitive paper and recycling them into usable items, and even taking the recyclable scrap metals to specific reutilization facilities. All of these efforts have become supervised and proactive efforts and resulted in immensely less tonnage going into landfills.
Bases world-wide are now ensuring that from Styrofoam packing peanuts to sonar buoy systems are assed first and recycled properly. While their Navy counterpart at sea operated all systems on a ship, the Marine Corp is now taking those same efforts to land. While they use to be the most wasteful branch of the Armed Forces is now becoming one of the top educators and recycling providers. So not only are they “always faithful” they are also always educating and making a difference one base at a time.