Container and Packaging Recycling Update - Volume XV No. 1 - Spring 2007

CRI in Transition

Letter from the retiring executive director

After 16 years at the helm of the Container Recycling Institute I am stepping down as executive director. As you can imagine, it is with mixed emotions that I leave the organization I founded in February 1991, an organization with a mission that has become so much a part of my life and my identity.

Over the past 16 years CRI has published numerous reports and newsletters, provided expert testimony at public hearings, made dozens of presentations at conferences and meetings, generated hundreds of news articles, editorials and op-eds, and developed and maintained two websites that are now getting more than 45,000 unique visits a month.

We have provided recycling advocates, policymakers, elected officials and the media with well-researched, reliable beverage container waste and recycling data. And, with others in the recycling arena, we have brought the issue of beverage container waste to the attention of public officials across the country.

With scarce resources, we’ve accomplished a great deal. But there’s still much to be done. As you will read in this newsletter, beverage container recycling remains at unacceptably low levels. The container recycling rate is lower than ever: 33% in 2005, down from 48% in 1997, and container waste has mushroomed. PET plastic bottle and aluminum can waste combined, quadrupled between 1990 and 2005. This appalling trend must be reversed.

I hope that those of you who have supported CRI in the past, will continue to lend financial support to the Container Recycling Institute.

CRI’s new executive director, Ms. Betty McLaughlin, brings 19 years of advocacy experience and a wealth of new ideas and energy to the organization. I have had the pleasure of working with Betty over the past six years as she led the effort to update Connecticut’s bottle bill. Betty is committed to reducing beverage container waste and is enthusiastic about growing CRI. I am pleased to be leaving this organization in such capable hands.

My sincere thanks to the individuals, organizations, foundations, and businesses who have supported our efforts, the board of directors, and to our small but dedicated staff who, with the help of dozens of interns over the past 16 years, have accomplished so much with so little.

And finally, thanks you to all who contributed to this newsletter.

Pat Franklin
patfarrellfranklin@gmail.com

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Message from the Chair  

If one can be sad and happy at the same time, then as chair of CRI, I most certainly am both.

Sadly, Pat Franklin is retiring as our Executive Director. She is CRI’s originator, and has been its brain trust and inspiration for 16 years. The CRI of today is all due to the hard work and dedication of Pat Franklin.

It’s good to know that these many years of experience and wisdom are only an e-mail away.

Happily, I announce that Elizabeth (Betty) McLaughlin became CRI’s new executive director on April 13.

Betty comes to CRI after serving as Environmental Affairs Director for the Connecticut Audubon Society. She has also been the Legislative Issues Director for the Sierra Club/Connecticut Chapter and Executive Director of the Farmington (CT) River Watershed Association.

Betty brings 19 years of non-profit environmental advocacy and public policy experience to CRI. CRI will benefit immensely from her leadership. We are in able hands!

These are truly exciting times. CRI has a larger, more diverse board. Funding efforts look promising.
Society now senses, more than ever, that we must protect our fragile environment. And CRI’s mission is more important today than ever before.

So thanks Pat. You’ve done a tremendous job. Welcome Betty. You bring new energy and vitality to the Container Recycling Institute. What can we do to help?

Scott Trundle, Chairman

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Letter from the new executive director

This is a watershed time for recycling in the United States. As leaders look for solutions to the global challenges of climate change, energy consumption, and resource depletion, the economic and societal benefits of recycling are being re-discovered. As a result, interest in recycling is enjoying a resurgence. For those of us who have always been advocates of less waste and producer responsibility this is certainly welcome news.

This renewed interest in recycling makes the opportunity to step up to the helm at CRI that much more exciting for me. I come to CRI after 19 years as a pro-environment advocate at the Connecticut statehouse, and a regular “user” of CRI’s high-quality research.

Like so many of the thousands of people who have come to rely on CRI’s well-researched, sourced and reliable beverage container waste and recycling data, I know what a valuable resource CRI is. Often, CRI’s data made the difference in winning a key vote or convincing a skeptical decision-maker.

That commitment to high-quality research and information has been the hallmark of CRI, and I am honored to have the opportunity to ensure that CRI will continue to provide the same level of expertise that our supporters and recycling advocates expect. I encourage you to let us know how we’re doing, and to continue to contact us with your ideas on ways we can help your container recycling efforts. I look forward to working with all of you in the coming years.

Betty McLaughlin, Executive Director
bmclaughlin@container-recycling.org

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