Please Recycle! A Comic by Max Barnewitz

Recycling can be confusing. Whew—we know. Have you ever thought it could be explained in a more engaging way?  

We’re excited to share with you a special comic on recycling from one of our SLCgreen alums. 

Max Barnewitz worked as SLCgreen’s Community Outreach Coordinator for several years before going on to earn their MFA in Comics at the California College of the Arts in 2023. In a recent project, Max found a through line between those two worlds, creating a comic explaining recycling in a fun, approachable way. (After all, who doesn’t want to hear about trash from a cute cartoon trash-panda?)   

Recycling is Real in Salt Lake City!  

Max hopes the comic will help show recycling is real and that it’s worth taking the time to recycle properly. “I’ve been very interested in recycling since working at SLCgreen,” Max shared, “[It’s] so immediate in terms of actions people can take at home to save emissions and conserve resources.” And yet “people think it’s fake.”   

It’s true that recycling is a patchwork service across the United States. But in Salt Lake City, we’re lucky enough to have a phenomenal curbside recycling service and a state-of-the-art Material Recovery Facility. Thanks to outreach efforts from our Waste & Recycling Education team, we also have one of the cleanest recycling streams in the country! Check out Max’s comic to learn more about what goes in your bin and where it’s sorted!   

Learn More with Master Recycler  

As Max worked on their comic, they knew sharing accurate and up-to-date information about recycling was critical.  

Throughout the comic-creation process, Max relied on one of SLCgreen’s recycling experts, Ashley Bailey. Ashley works to educate residents every day about waste management as the lead for Salt Lake City’s Recycling Education Team. Ashley and her team attend community events, make presentations to various groups, and audit recycling bins across the city (you’ve probably seen one of them rolling up in a City Prius to check cans on your street at some point). Ashley also helps facilitate an in-depth recycling and waste management course each spring called “Master Recycler.” The course is free and open to the public, so keep an eye out for when registration opens in the winter! 

In the meantime, check out Max’s comic, and visit our website to learn more about what belongs in your blue bin.