Traditional Recycling
When I started at Zone 5 there were four people employed here. These days at any given time there are thirty-something. You can imagine that growing seven fold in a period of ten years required us to make some upgrades, especially when it comes to our impact on landfills. Not recycling at this stage is basically unthinkable. In an average week any office our size uses hundreds of consumables of all varieties. Cans, bottles, paper, all the usual suspects. If you aren’t recycling at work these items are going directly into landfills where they will stay indefinitely.
We used to rent a relatively small dumpster that was emptied once a week. However as time went on we grew, and there was more of everything. More employees, more projects, more deliveries, and as a direct result? More garbage. What became increasingly obvious was that a growing portion of the dumpster content was cardboard, and thus the cardboard dumpster was born. We were able to offset the additional cost of the cardboard dumpster by having our regular dumpster emptied less often and now we were recycling.
Back in the day we drank a lot of soda. One of my first assignments at Zone 5 was to take the deposit cans back. Sounds simple enough right? Picture an entire 10'x12' office filled with soda cans. Even though it was eleven years ago I still remember it was over $40 worth which equates to more than 800 cans and bottles. It took hours and several trips. At the time it was enough money to buy the whole office lunch. This chore was passed from coworker to coworker until eventually no one wanted to do it, at which time we were able to combine our plastic and glass with cardboard for no additional charge.
For a while we rationalized that a large portion of the paper we threw out was made from post-consumer content. That was a good start but there was no reason not to go full circle. One phone call later and sure enough we were able to throw the copier paper in the same dumpster with everything else. They grab it all in one shot and sort it out later.
It really was that simple. There was no special secret or complex formula to follow. The only trick to success is making recycling convenient enough that your coworkers will do their part. Putting an extra bin next to the regular garbage with a recycling logo on the lid seems to have done the trick for us. We also put a bin next to the printer for the paper.
Does the company you work for recycle? For the most part my posts are just a record of what Zone 5 is doing but this is one instance when I would urge you to act. Make sure your employer is recycling. If they aren’t currently doing it ask how you can help. It was shockingly easy to institute and it costs almost nothing.
We recycle lots of other items and we’ll get to them, but next up I’ll show you how to get 85 miles to the gallon in style.
