Question by Peanut: How can i get a recycle program started at the office?
I work in an office that is constantly throwing out old files and lots of paper and i want to start to get them to recycle. I have been taking all my papers home and throwing them in my own bin but how do i go about getting one at work and does it cost???
Best answer:
Answer by Mike F
start recycling son. not that i can understand why anyone would want to do something like that. conformist. i like to DETRACT from the environment, not preserve it… there’s no point in being environmentally proactive, by the time it pays off our great great grandchildren will be dead. i say litter away!
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I can’t tell where you live, but Abitibi http://www.paperretriever.com/?id=1 will provide paper bins, under most circumstances, for no charge.
My husband and I run our city’s Recycling Center and Abitibi provides us two large paper bins at no charge. They will even pay for the recycled paper, by the ton.
The only issue with a paper bin is that, unless it is placed wisely, people will throw garbage into it. One summer our paper bin was filled with fireworks, set on fire, and totally destroyed. Abitibi will not pick up and empty a paper bin (they have a truck that does it on-site) if it is full of garbage.
Bless you for recycling! We don’t want our kids and grandkids to look around and see nothing but landfills.
Here’s a great online resource that tells you how you can start a recycling program:
http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/recycling/programs
Talk to the HR person and see if they can get a recycling bin outside. And you should politely explain to them that it could give them a tax incentive. Meanwhile, I suggest you keep doing what you’re doing and take the papers home to the bin so they can be recycled.
See if a curbside pick-up is available in your area and what they recycle. The cans are usually free, but the service may cost money. If that option doesn’t work out go to Home Depot and get some cans or bins. If there is a recycling center in your area you or someone else can drop them off yourself for free. We recycle lots of items at my job, but my boss is the one who drops them off at the center, which is very close to our work. He got his own cans from Home Depot or Lowes and labeled them. We recycle cardboard and plastics. Check and see what is in your area.
I think your ally might be the HR department. Convince them, but do some provable calculations on a weekly and monthly basis on costs vs rewards. If you can’t do the calculations, ask some collegeues about hour ideas and get them to help you. Really, it shouldn’t take more than a dozen hours with good reliable poundage estimates for paper.
Considerations:
– quantity of recyclable material,
– collection methods and frequency of collection (internal or contract outside business),
– bins / boxes / containers style (look up in online catalogues)
– how to motivate (give a good six-month info-awareness campaign),
– how will financial compensation for the recycled paper be spent (i.e. lower costs for soft-drinks/snacks),
– do we make it a competetive-style recycling (i.e. equivalently-sized departments) or mutual-benefits style…are just some of the ideas that cross my mind.
Go to the nearest airport and ask them how they recycle. They have a Trash-Paper-Plastic system, usually…. No metal trash in airports for obvious reasons. You’re lucky, Paper is nice and clean.
Get HR to think about this with you. They may be just waiting for a “regular” employee to come up with the energy and drive to make the thing work. Certainly, they have thought of doing this before after so many years of “eco-awareness”. Maybe it’s just a single die-hard upper-level admin type who wields too much negative sway to have made it a go of in the last 20 years. It might be that person whom you really have to convince. If he/she says, “No.” – well, you tried, and that’s really good anyway. Plan ahead with provable information. Don’t rely on hope to convince anybody, okay?
Just some thoughts… G’luck!!