BailOut
07-07-2008, 06:31 PM
This week marks the beginning of "single stream recycling" for Incline Village, NV, where my office is located.
When I first started here a year and a half ago I implemented a recycling program not just for my offices but also for the whole of the business park we are tenants in. This was bolstered by our landlord's involvement in asking me for handouts to send out with the monthly tenant invoices.
The same fellow also owns the bowling alley and bar next door and this prompted them to start recycling as well. :) I have always allowed them to overflow into my bins on the occasions they fill their own too early in the pick-up cycle.
Since this all started I have spent 30-45 minutes each week between taking our recyclables out to the bins, "pruning" the bins (taking out the non-recyclables and trash that makes it into them, fixing sorting mistakes, taking the lids off of bottles, etc.) and taking all of our cardboard to the local transfer station as they wouldn't pick it up from businesses.
Despite the limitations of the past program (we could only recycle plastic bottles in groups 1 or 2, no other plastics, no paperboard (like cereal boxes), etc.) we still made good use of it. Our company maintains a "wall of snackage" and a cooler full of drinks for us so my coworkers can crank out some recyclable waste by the armful, though getting everyone into the recycling at the office had an early side effect of getting them to cut back on how much they consume. When you see a real-world visual representation of your waste it can be overwhelming. ;) The fellow that does the bulk runs to stock these things for us has been able to shift to monthly trips vs. every other week despite the fact that we've hired 20% more people since this started. :Banane42:
Single stream recycling makes things a little easier on the sorting but I don't care about that. The big thing is that it lets us recycle much, much more than before. We can now recycle all plastics except Styrofoam regardless of the shape (although plastic bags and cellophane films, etc. must still be bagged separately), all clean paper products including paperboard, cardboard now goes into the bins so I no longer have to make weekly runs to the ultra-dusty transfer station, bottle lids of all types (I used to have to remove them from the bottles and discard them), etc.
I spent an hour today converting the big bins to mixed recyclables and all of the collection points from 3-bin systems (paper, glass, plastic/aluminum) into 2-bin systems (plastic bags, everything else) and relabeling everything accordingly, then sending out a company-wide email explaining the changes. I also garnered a handout from the city office that controls the program which our landlord will again distribute within our business complex with this month's invoices.
I won't have this recycling program at my residence in Reno for at least another year and a half, unfortunately. I knew it was coming here at work, though, due to my close involvement with the WasteNot office which runs the recycling. As such I've been storing up things at home for months that I knew I'd be able to recycle up here soon, like 20 polypropylene food containers (it's what the margarine and sour cream always come in), 5 plastic pots that our new shrubbery came in, etc. I even had a plastic "bag of bags" to turn in (despite the fact that we don't use plastic bags anymore they still come with lots of food packaging and shipped items).
It was totally gratifying to finally dump all that into a recycle bin, and then I lined up some cardboard in the bin right next to it just because I could. :)
When I first started here a year and a half ago I implemented a recycling program not just for my offices but also for the whole of the business park we are tenants in. This was bolstered by our landlord's involvement in asking me for handouts to send out with the monthly tenant invoices.
The same fellow also owns the bowling alley and bar next door and this prompted them to start recycling as well. :) I have always allowed them to overflow into my bins on the occasions they fill their own too early in the pick-up cycle.
Since this all started I have spent 30-45 minutes each week between taking our recyclables out to the bins, "pruning" the bins (taking out the non-recyclables and trash that makes it into them, fixing sorting mistakes, taking the lids off of bottles, etc.) and taking all of our cardboard to the local transfer station as they wouldn't pick it up from businesses.
Despite the limitations of the past program (we could only recycle plastic bottles in groups 1 or 2, no other plastics, no paperboard (like cereal boxes), etc.) we still made good use of it. Our company maintains a "wall of snackage" and a cooler full of drinks for us so my coworkers can crank out some recyclable waste by the armful, though getting everyone into the recycling at the office had an early side effect of getting them to cut back on how much they consume. When you see a real-world visual representation of your waste it can be overwhelming. ;) The fellow that does the bulk runs to stock these things for us has been able to shift to monthly trips vs. every other week despite the fact that we've hired 20% more people since this started. :Banane42:
Single stream recycling makes things a little easier on the sorting but I don't care about that. The big thing is that it lets us recycle much, much more than before. We can now recycle all plastics except Styrofoam regardless of the shape (although plastic bags and cellophane films, etc. must still be bagged separately), all clean paper products including paperboard, cardboard now goes into the bins so I no longer have to make weekly runs to the ultra-dusty transfer station, bottle lids of all types (I used to have to remove them from the bottles and discard them), etc.
I spent an hour today converting the big bins to mixed recyclables and all of the collection points from 3-bin systems (paper, glass, plastic/aluminum) into 2-bin systems (plastic bags, everything else) and relabeling everything accordingly, then sending out a company-wide email explaining the changes. I also garnered a handout from the city office that controls the program which our landlord will again distribute within our business complex with this month's invoices.
I won't have this recycling program at my residence in Reno for at least another year and a half, unfortunately. I knew it was coming here at work, though, due to my close involvement with the WasteNot office which runs the recycling. As such I've been storing up things at home for months that I knew I'd be able to recycle up here soon, like 20 polypropylene food containers (it's what the margarine and sour cream always come in), 5 plastic pots that our new shrubbery came in, etc. I even had a plastic "bag of bags" to turn in (despite the fact that we don't use plastic bags anymore they still come with lots of food packaging and shipped items).
It was totally gratifying to finally dump all that into a recycle bin, and then I lined up some cardboard in the bin right next to it just because I could. :)