Congratulations to this Year's Leader Scholarship Recipients!

This year's competition for scholarships to the 2020 Texas Recycling and Composting Summit was open to both high school and college students for the first time ever!

Congratulations to:

Preston Reed, Texas Christian University

Michelle Mokamba, South Grand Prairie Highschool

Irene Reyes, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Margot Shields, Texas State University

Congratulations to the 2020 Texas Environmental Leadership Award Winners!

Recipients will be honored at the Texas Environmental Leadership Awards presentation and ceremony, which will take place virtually during the Texas Recycling & Composting Summit on Wednesday, October 7th, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

See Photos of 2020 Recipients on Facebook

This Year's Winners Are:

Congratulations to the 2020 North Texas Environmental Leadership Award Winners!

Recipients will be honored at the North Texas Environmental Leadership Awards ceremony, which will take place virtually on Thursday, August 13th, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. CST.

STAR North Texas is a regional council group representing STAR, a 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to advance recycling through partnerships, education, and advocacy for the benefit of Texas. 

These awards recognize true stewards of environmental change in North Texas—individuals, communities, organizations, and businesses developing and maintaining programs involving recycling, composting, sustainable materials management, public outreach, special event recycling, and so much more.

This year, we also had a new category—All-STAR Elected Official—to highlight those in politics who are advancing sustainability and protecting the environment in Texas.

This Year's Winners Are:

Join us Oct. 5-7, 2020, for STAR's first-ever virtual Summit, which will also be—for the first time in over 20 years—a combined conference for the Texas Recycling Summit and the Texas Composting Summit! 

You do not want to miss this event! This year's theme is "Rethinking Recycling," which is now more fitting than ever with the current changes the industry has experienced.

Originally planned as an in-person event, Summit has been moved to an all-virtual event for the safety of our participants, members and staff. STAR will be utilizing a first-class virtual conference platform that enables face-to-face exhibitor and attendee interactions, live and pre-recorded videos, live networking events, tours and more! 

We will be featuring multiple top-notch online tracts and live engaging panels covering the most pertinent topics in the recycling and composting industries. This event will bring together over 300+ industry professionals from schools, cities, businesses, and NGOs to virtually collaborate, educate, and network as we collectively advance recycling and composting in Texas. 

Attendees will get to interact with over 40 exhibitors virtually, join together for a kick-off celebration on Oct. 5th, and STAR will host its annual Texas Environmental Leadership Awards (TELA) live online Oct. 6th! See more details at link below.

Want to be a part of the virtual action? Submit your proposal today to be a presenter or provide a pre-recorded session! Our call for speakers is open until June 19th.

Apply to be a Summit Speaker

EXHIBITOR AND ATTENDEE REGISTRATION WILL OPEN IN EARLY JULY 2020. More details will be coming very soon.

Celebrate the life of Kim Mote with us on Wednesday, June 10th, 2020, starting at 5:30 p.m. CST. 

Friends and colleagues will gather virtually to share memories, photos, and we'll grab our favorite beverage and raise a final toast to a wonderful person.   

If you have a photo(s) of Kim that you want to share with everyone, please send it to Jordan Fengel, STAR ED, at jordan.fengel@recyclingstar.org by June 9th to be included in the slide show. 

RSVP on our events page to join us Wednesday, June 10th, at 5:30 p.m. CST. 

The call for nominations for the 2020 Texas Environmental Leadership Awards is open!

The Awards annually recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals, communities, and businesses for developing or maintaining programs involving recycling and other sustainability efforts across Texas.

Nominations close July 10th, 2020 at 5 pm CST, so nominate your most recognition-deserving recycling colleagues now!

Apply here!

The call for nominations for the STAR North Texas 2020 Environmental Leadership Awards is open!

The Awards annually recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals, communities, and businesses for developing or maintaining programs involving recycling and other sustainability efforts in North Texas.

Nominations close June 29 at 5pm CST, so nominate your most recognition-deserving recycling colleagues now!

Award nomination form: http://ow.ly/a6IA50zz3fh.

The 2020 Texas Recycling and Composting Summit Call-for-Speakers is Now Open!

Submit your proposal here

STAR is hosting the Texas Recycling and Composting Summit at the Marriott South Hotel in Austin, Texas, October 5-7, 2020.

This is the only state conference dedicated entirely to two major sectors of materials management—recycling and composting. We're excited to feature engaging sessions on relevant and timely topics in both sectors.

We anticipate this year's Texas Recycling and Composting Summit to attract more than 300 recycling professionals from municipalities, local and state government, private industry, higher education, and NGOs/trade associations.

We have opened up a call for subject experts to participate in both presentation-style sessions (60 minutes) and engaging and discursive panels (90 minutes).

We invite you to submit the information below as it relates to one or more of the following topics:

• COVID-19—Moving Forward in Changing Times: retailers, manufacturers, haulers, processors and others connected through the supply chain
• Hard to recycle items: policies, practices, how-to guides on managing EPS material, mattresses, appliances, and other not easily recyclable goods
• Buying recycled: state/local gov/corporation policies, practices, and how-to guides for the procurement of recycled content goods
• Integrated landfill facilities in Texas and beyond
• Technological advancements in the resource management industry, such as blockchain tech, A.I., deep learning machines
• End-market development in Texas current and future, such as chemical recycling, processors, end-users
• How-to 101: Virtual Communications and Presentations in the digital world - with staff, the public, and personally
• Recycling and waste diversion best management practices for Hospitality, Healthcare, and Businesses (small and large generators)
• Texas wine and beer sustainability – material diversion, bottle reuse, and best management practices for waste reduction
• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) – what’s new, what’s coming
• The Packaging Debate – the myths and the facts
• Construction materials recovery - wood to biochar, metals, office furniture, and other recovered C&D materials

Topics are not limited to the above list, if you have an alternate idea about a topic you would like to speak about all ideas will be considered. 

The deadline for submitting is Friday, June 19th at 11:59 pm CST.
The Summit Agenda Committee will review all the submissions, and participants will be notified of the status of their submission via email by mid-July. 

Please note: Not all submissions will be selected to participate as a speaker at Summit.

Help guide and enhance this great organization!

STAR's goal is to provide the necessary services that you need as we all work towards the mission of advancing recycling in Texas. We would greatly appreciate feedback from our STAR members on how we're doing and what you'd like to see more (or less) of from us in our outreach and activities.

You should have received an email with a link to our new membership survey. If you did not receive it, please let us know at info@recyclingstar.org and we will send you the link. The survey is brief and you will remain anonymous. We value the feedback you are giving us!

STAR is proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Bin Grant Program, sponsored by Busch Systems

Thank you to all who entered this year's competition, and to Busch Systems for sponsoring this year's competition!