Transition Program: Moving Away From Single-Use Plastics
The City of Charleston was awarded a grant from SC DHEC to support a community-wide transition program to move Charleston away from single-use plastics that can't be recycled or composted.
The grant project pairs perfectly and provides resources to expand the City's efforts to support outreach to residents, businesses and organizations to facilitate a smooth transition period and community adaptation to the new regulations.
The project will encourage behavioral changes and awareness of existing recycling and composting programs in order to increase rates of recycling and composting, and recycling efficiency, while also reducing waste generated by single‐use plastics.
Business Support
Business Transition Workshops: October 2019
The workshops were designed to provide establishments with tools and resources to support a smooth transition and adaptation of the new plastic regulations.
Over 50 businesses and organizations joined us at a free workshop in October!
There were two opportunities to attend, and neither event sold out:
- Monday, October 28, 2019, from 10 to 11 a.m. at 423 King Street (Event Link), -or-
- Wednesday, October 30, 2019 from 6 to 7 p.m. at 1630-2 Meeting Street (Event Link)
Resources for Businesses
- List of Suppliers offering alternative products
- Business Transition Workshop Presentation
- FAQ: What if retailers have large stocks of leftover plastic bags?
- Food Waste Composting: FAQ's and List of Compost Collection Partners
- Recycle Right! What can be recycled through Charleston County's program?
- Business Recycling Programs: Join today!
- Signage for labeling Recycling, Compost & Garbage bins
FREE BUSINESS SIGNAGE AVAILABLE!
- SIGNAGE: "Shop With Reusable Bags" (8.5"x11")
- SIGNAGE: "Shop With Reusable Bags" (24"x36")
- SIGNAGE: "Charleston's Plastic Bag Regulations" (fits 8.5"x11")
- SIGNAGE: "Charleston's Plastic Regulations" (fits 8.5"x11")
- SIGNAGE: Table Tent Display includes both "Charleston's Plastic Bag Regulations" and "Charleston's Plastic Regulations" (8.5"x11")
- Designed to fold and cut on the lines (pre-printed signs were all claimed and are no longer available)
The grant project is supporting business signage to help encourage community-wide use of reusable bags and bring more awareness to our plastic challenges and the new regulations. Thank you to all the businesses who provided input on what size and type of signage works for you!
Resident Support
Resident Transition Workshops:
December 2019
These workshops included a reusable bag and straw giveaway and encouraged folks to shop with reusable bags!
The workshops were designed to provide residents with tools and resources that will help support a smooth community-wide transition to the new single-use plastic regulations that take effect January 1, 2020.
Over 70 residents joined us at a free workshop in December!
There were two opportunities to attend:
- Sunday, December 8, 2019, from 1 to 2 p.m. at 1401 Sam Rittenberg Blvd (Event Link), -or-
- Wednesday, December 11, 2019 from 6 to 7 p.m. at 60 America Street (Event Link)
Thank you to everyone who provided input on what reusable bags work for you! We have met with many folks in the community to gather opinions on the type and size of bags to purchase, and there was strong interest to purchase a variety of types, including insulated bags, cotton bags, and foldaway bags, and stainless steel straws with cleaners! Thank you for your input!
Resources for Residents
- Resident Transition Workshop Presentation
- Recycle Right! What can be recycled through Charleston County's program?
Non-Profit Organization Support
Starter Inventory & Reusable Bag Support
An allocation of grant funding was set aside to assist charitable non-profit organizations that serve food in non-compostable or non-recyclable disposable service ware or utilize single-use plastic bags.
We are proud to have been able to support over 30 charitable non-profit organizations in June 2020 by providing free fiber-based disposable products such as plates, cups and clamshells to help the organizations transition away from using polystyrene products!
Thank you to all the 30+ organizations who participated and are supporting environmentally friendly products. Special props to one organization who was able to completely switch from using disposable products to using reusable products!