Read about how the consumer driven recycling program sprouted from an idea into an initiative.

The picture below is worth a thousand words, but in this case for the GreenOps tracking stations, it’s worth a million items. That’s right. The GreenOps tracking stations have officially recycled over 1 million items since their placement in local Whole Foods markets last year. The success is all because of green-minded consumers and Greenopolis fans like you!

Before I go any further, I hope that you know what a GreenOps tracking station is. If you don’t, then you should read our GreenOps Tracking System page for an introduction.

In the beginning…
Although you, the consumer, does deserve the credit for this historic green event (since you actually brought in the items to be recycled), equal credit goes to an amazing GreenOps team who helped design and create the tracking stations. Anthony Zolezzi, the marketing maven, and Paul Wolff, the operational wizard, are two of the visionaries who took on the challenge of inventing and breathing life into the whole GreenOps project.

I contacted Anthony and he shared some information about how he got started with the project. He told me that in 2007 he had completed the sale of his pet food company, Pet Promise, to Purina, and he was ready to take on a new challenge. He said, “I had focused my attention on waste since I had worked on everything imaginable on the growing and processing side of food. I started looking at what happens post consumption - and was aghast at the waste in packaging.”

“From that point I went around the world looking at how countries dealt with waste and material recovery. I developed a company business plan, met Paul Wolff (who technologically knew how to put the recovery piece together) and we incorporated Code Blue Recycling, which was about tracking and recovering packaging waste.”

Here’s Anthony talking about the GreenOps tracking system:

Paul Wolff had a different introduction to GreenOps. He had spent the last several years in the ATM business, so he was excited when Anthony contacted him about participating in this new green endeavor. In a phone conversation I had with Paul he said that he wanted to be part of a project that would both protect and manage resources. The GreenOps tracking stations were a great way to begin this process.

He said, “Even it’s just a 12 oz. water container being recycled it’s still meaningful and rewarding to go from trash to valuable resources.” For Paul it doesn’t matter if the recyclables are going from bottle to bottle, bottle to shirt or bottle to kayak. It’s all about creating positive change for the planet.

The center of it all
As you can see, both of these guys meant business, but they couldn’t do the entire GreenOps project alone. The team hired the talented Melissa McGinnis, added Waste Management’s managing director Paul Ligon to the mix and brought in a slew of other eco-friendly folk to the GreenOps team. With the additional help of Whole Foods Market, Waste Management, Greenopolis, and you, Anthony and Paul were able to aid in the very first unveiling of a GreenOps tracking station in Los Angeles.

Here’s a video of the big event:

Other unveilings soon followed, like this one in West Hollywood:

No end in sight
Since that first introduction to the world in July 2009, the GreenOps tracking stations have become a huge success. Over one million items have been recycled, and there’s no telling what the future will hold once the systems are placed in public parks, museums, university campuses and other public places. I’m guessing it will be a bright one!

Here are a few final thoughts on the future of recycling by none other than Anthony Zolezzi. I thought it would be an appropriate ending to what is sure to be the beginning of a sustainable future. Anthony says, “For the future - I think about the plastic gyre or the pacific garbage patch that sits off the California Coast and is as big as Texas. What if the GreenOps system can collect a big part of the 75% of plastic packaging that is not recovered today? What if the GreenOps system can close the loop on the 50 billion lbs of PET and HDPE produced every year just in the United States? I believe we can do this with the Waste Management infrastructure and the branding, tracking, rewards and education features of the GreenOps and Greenopolis platforms and of course, Paul Ligon and his leadership. I think we are on the verge of game changing business that truly will make a difference for our children’s children.”