Photo By Claudia Neve | Contractors move World War II-era barracks to its new foundation on Nov. 01, 2023 at...... read more read more
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America Recycles Day is Nov. 15, and it is an annual day that promotes recycling and the impact it has across the nation.
America Recycles Day has been bringing attention to what America does with its waste. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that the rate in which America recycles has increased from less than 7 percent, in 1960, to around 32 percent, as of 2018. Estimating that in 2018, 69 million tons of waste were recycled, and 25 million tons composted out of the 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste.
Fort McCoy makes large efforts in lowering the amount of waste that goes to landfills. In the 2023 fiscal year alone, records holding recycled 39,060 pounds of paper and 100 pounds of media according to Administrative Services Division Chief Trudy Ward.
Fort McCoy’s largest recycling project this year was recycling buildings. Instead of demolishing four barracks that were built back in 1942 to make room for new ones; Fort McCoy has been in the process of physically moving the WWII-era buildings to a new location to be reused in the future. It also creates more jobs while keeping less waste from going into landfills.
“Two of the barracks are set in the 1700 block, one is in the 1800 block, and another one is in the 2800 block,” said Engineering Technician/Construction Inspector Timothy Peterson with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works (DPW) Construction Inspection Branch. “They are set in open lots among the rest of the barracks in the blocks. Eventually they will be brought back on-line and returned to use for units that come here for training.”
According to findings that were published in 2016 by the EPA, the benefits of recycling have accounted for 681,000 jobs, $37.8 billion in wages and $5.5 billion in tax revenue. For more information on the report check out https://www.epa.gov/smm/recycling-economic-information-rei-report.
The effort by Ward and Fort McCoy’s Directorate of Human Resources are just a few of many across Fort McCoy to save energy and resources consistently for the Army on a regular basis, Fort McCoy Garrison officials said. Other initiatives to partner with local energy cooperatives for better energy savings as well as efforts like concrete recycling, solar energy implementation, and more have been part of Fort McCoy’s every-day efforts.
Most recently, Fort McCoy and Xcel Energy are continuing the process of changing the electrical grid on post from a Delta Electrical System to a Wye Electrical System, Fort McCoy D
PW officials said. Wye is a three-phase electrical system that uses a wire for each electrical leg and a separate neutral wire.
Delta is also a three-phase but uses one of the legs as the neutral, so it only has three wires. Work will continue throughout the year. Brandon Gronau with the Fort McCoy DPW Operations and Maintenance Division Energy Branch discussed the ongoing work.
“We — Fort McCoy and Xcel — are in the process of changing from a Delta Electrical System to a Wye Electrical System,” Gronau said in a past Fort McCoy news article. “Fort McCoy’s part in this is resiliency. Because Xcel is changing everything anyway, we decided that we wanted to move all of our overhead electrical that is inside the cantonment area underground as part of our move to making Fort McCoy more energy resilient.”
The EPA also encourages every American to contribute by recycling correctly; not only on America Recycles Day but all year long. “This means checking with your local recycling provider to know what they will accept in your recycling bin. Items like cardboard, metal cans, and paper are commonly accepted by local curbside programs, and items like plastic bags, electronics and batteries do NOT go in the curbside recycling bin” EPA stated on their official website.
Learn more about America Recycles Day, the benefits of recycling, and more ways to recycle go to https://www.epa.gov/circulareconomy/america-recycles-day.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.”
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2023 13:42 |
| Story ID: | 457381 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 597 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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