It's one of the easiest ways to help our planet -- reducing air and water pollution, saving energy, conserving natural resources and creating jobs -- but the majority of people in the United States still don't recycle regularly.

At the Rainforest Alliance, we recognize the need to safeguard the world's limited natural resources through responsible land and waste management practices that include the recycling and reusing of materials. We incorporate recycling into standards and best practices for the sustainable management of agriculture, forestry and tourism enterprises. For example...

Farmers working within the Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM program learn the value of recycling, often earning extra income from the sale of recycled waste. On Chiquita's company-owned and Rainforest Alliance Certified farms, roughly 80 percent of all plastic bags and twine are recycled or reused. Taking the commitment a step further, the company has installed systems for recycling on its packing plants. Unilever Tea Kenya's Kericho estate also embraced recycling after becoming Rainforest Alliance Certified. The estate has identified new outlets for selling recyclable material and begun separating its solid waste.

We encourage forestry businesses to embrace recycling throughout the entire supply chain -- from the forest to the paper mill. Domtar (which produces an entire line of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)/ Rainforest Alliance Certified paper) has implemented comprehensive waste and recycling management practices at its company mill and now sends less than five percent of its garbage to landfills. In addition to encouraging recycling within operations processing wood and pulp from certified forests, we also work to ensure that paper is recycled through a verifiable, audited process. The FSC-recycled* label can be found on an assortment of wood and paper products and is the only recycled label in the marketplace that is rigorously audited and truly meaningful.

The Rainforest Alliance also works with hotels and other tourism businesses to encourage the responsible use and disposal of resources. In our workshops, we teach tourism entrepreneurs how and why to recycle paper, glass, plastic and water. These businesses can earn extra income from the sale of recycled materials, attract conscientious customers by promoting their eco-commitments, and cut costs by getting more mileage out of their reused and recycled goods.

*Paper can only be recycled a half dozen times before it breaks down, and recycled material is not suitable for all uses. Eventually, we must go back to the forest for virgin fiber, and when we do, it should be sustainably harvested.