Make Every Day Earth Day!

Did you know that Earth Day is April 22, and it’s the 40th year that we will celebrate an Earth Day!?  So what are you doing to celebrate?  On that Thursday, you will probably go to work like millions of other Americans.  I cannot think of a better place to celebrate Earth Day. Let’s celebrate Earth Day by insuring that your office has a robust recycling program and encouraging your fellow employees to actively participate in the recycling program.

The recycling industry has evolved to the point where you can now co-mingle most of your most commonly used recyclable items into one bin - this is known as single stream recycling. In its most basic form, you simply place all of your office paper and beverage containers (glass, plastic and aluminum) in one recycling bin.  This adds convenience to your office recycling program and eliminates the clutter caused by multiple recycling collection bins to handle the different recyclable materials.

A robust office recycling program starts by making a deeper commitment than just a recycling bin in the office lunch room.  You can start by insuring that there are recycling bins at each desk. Then strategically place recycling bins near the high use areas, one next to the copier and fax machines, one next to the soda machine and refrigerator and of course you can leave the one you already have in the lunch room. In addition to collecting your standard recyclable items you can recycle other office products such as ink cartridges from your printers, copiers and fax machines. Also, talk to your IT department and insure that they are recycling all old office and electronic equipment like computers, copiers, fax machines and cell phones.

Next is the tricky part.  Everything is in place to collect the recyclables, but now you need to ensure participation. You can strategically place posters next to the areas where your recyclable items are typically found, like the copy machine, the fax machine and in the lunch room. If you are overly ambitious you can have your IT department change everyone’s screen saver to have a message about recycling.  I have found that guilt is a wonderful motivational tool, so don’t be afraid to use it. You can also recognize people for participating in your recycling progam, maybe give the “Recycler of the Month Award” and reward them with a lunch, a gift certificate or a ½ day off.

Now there is one final thing that you must do to complete the recycling cycle –  BUY RECYCLED.  The recycling loop isn’t complete until the materials collected at curbside and drop-off sites are remanufactured into new products and purchased by consumers.  Look for the symbol below and the words “postconsumer”.  Postconsumer means that the product is made from materials collected through recycling programs …like yours.  (It is also important to understand that not every product made from recycled content is labeled with this symbol).

Some of the benefits of your efforts:

• The energy savings from using recycled paper when making new paper products is about 35%, for plastic it is 75%, for glass it is 25% and for aluminum cans it is 95%.
• Every ton of paper made from recycled materials conserves, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,000 KWh of electricity and 60 lbs of air pollutants (not including CO2).
• Recycling approximately one ton of paper saves 17 trees.
• 10% of the oil consumption in the US is for plastics, this equates to 2 million barrels of oil per day.
• Although plastics account for only 8% of the waste by weight, they occupy about 20% of the volume in a landfill due to their low bulk density.
• Americans discard enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every 3 months.
• One recycled aluminum can saves enough electricity to run a computer for three hours.
• For every ton of recycled aluminum cans we reduce the carbon dioxide emissions by almost 14 tons.
• Every ton of recycled glass used saves 700 lbs of carbon.
• For every ton of recycled glass used it takes 1.2 tons of virgin raw materials.

Let’s celebrate and make this 40th Earth Day one to remember…… every day!