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Sunday, November 8, 2026Nov 8

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Opinion: Tennessee’s recycling program re-imagined with reuse in mind

Staff file photo/Matt Hamilton / Shane Scott drives a recycling truck as he picks up recycling along Ashley Forest Drive on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021.
Staff file photo/Matt Hamilton / Shane Scott drives a recycling truck as he picks up recycling along Ashley Forest Drive on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. Staff file photo/Matt Hamilton / Shane Scott drives a recycling truck as he picks up recycling along Ashley Forest Drive on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021.

We have a trash problem in Tennessee.

Our landfills are reaching capacity. There were 57 landfills in Tennessee two years ago. That figure has dropped to about 30 as some county landfills reached capacity or ran out of land space for expansion.

And that number will drop further.

One strategy to extend the life of operating landfills is recycling, thereby keeping as much material as possible from ever getting to landfills.

But Tennessee has a problem with recycling too. The biggest problem is that not enough recyclable material is getting recycled, and that means a huge amount of recyclables end up in our landfills. What a waste.