Recycling at Work
By Karina | August 8, 2007
For those of you who aren’t from around here, the metro NYC area – including NJ – has some pretty strict recycling regulations. In both areas it’s required that everyone recycle – including businesses!
And yet, at my job there are no recycling bins. None!
This is concerning for a couple of reasons (beyond standard “I love the Earth” reasons) – First, I’m an environmental consultant! our job is to do environmental things! As my friend (also an environmental consultant) who works across the street pointed out: it’s kind of embarrassing when you’ve got a client in the office (sometimes these clients are recycling companies) and they notice that the garbage cans are full of bottles and cans and paper. And secondly, um, we’re kind of in violation with township regulations requiring everyone – even office parks! to recycle. I’m pretty sure that the liability for the recycling goes with the realty company, but I’ve never looked at the lease.
Around the beginning of the year, I decided it was time to reduce my footprint. I thought it was about time to really take responsibility for my waste streams. At first I started to cart my own recycling home with me. But that was inefficient, and I found myself picking the garbage for other people’s recycling. So I called the realty company to ask what the deal was and they told me that the hauler sorted the waste and recycled after it was picked up. Um. Maybe I’m a doubter, but I just don’t think that happens. So I looked up the regulations for the township I work in and discovered that the hauler must have an exemption to collect commingled waste streams, and if the waste is commingled, the hauler must submit quarterly reports to the township detailing the tonnage of materials recycled. And when I mentioned these reports to the realty company, they had no idea what I was talking about. So until I can get a copy of the exemption or these reports, I assume there is no recycling at my work place.
In March, I decided to take a more proactive role in recycling. I asked our office manager to purchase a blue recycling bin for the kitchen, and I sent an email around asking people to please start putting rinsed recyclables in the bin so I could take them home to sneak into my apartment building recycling. I brought in a couple of reusable bags I had at home and use them to line the bin so I don’t have to worry about plastic bags on top of everything.
The system is a success! but I will admit, it’s kind of a pain! it’s really easy for me to take the recycling home with me – don’t get me wrong. But a lot of people don’t rinse the recycling, and that makes me GROUCHY. I find myself tidying up the office kitchen more than I’d like to, and I am also constantly picking recyclables out of the garbage. I pick a lot of trash out of the recycling too – I don’t know if people miss the garbage can, or if they’re distracted and don’t pay attention – but I’m always surprised at the kinds of stuff in there.
I don’t want to overload my coworkers with information, either, or make them feel like they’re doing something wrong, so I’m reluctant to address the trash and the no-rinsing in another email. And depending on how my day is going at work I am more or less grouchy about the state of the recycling bin.
It’s not all bad, though – everyone has been very helpful. When I was in Japan for 2 weeks my coworkers took turns bringing the recycling home with them. And we’re diverting a lot of recyclables from the landfill – I’ve got to take the recyling home 2 to 3 times a week. I also have broadcast that I will take CDs, batteries, and tyvek envelopes [ed: that link may be broken, try this one instead] for recycling. (Roz stated in her interview that her friend Guamaniac does the same at their office! way to go!)
And tangentially, I will also say that I feel pretty great about the added value I’m getting from the miles I’d be driving to work anyway. It’s almost as good as carpooling!
Today, I’m happy to announce that I’m taking the gloves off. I’d left the issue alone while our new lease was negotiated, but now that it’s final I am going to make sure that recycling starts to happen in my building! If that means I have to start shaking cages and reporting realty companies, that’s what I’ll do – and I’ll keep you posted.
[[link: NYC businesses are required to recycle too!]]
[[link: Recycle This! Grassroots waste reduction & recycling activist group in NYC.]]
[[link: Required recyclables by NJ County - hint, I work in Middlesex County. Required commercial recycling includes aluminum cans, corrugated cardboard, glass containers, HDPE/PET plastics, mixed paper, newspaper, and office paper.]]
[[link: Downloadable 2007 NJ Recycling Poetry Calender!]]
Topics: Waste | 12 Comments »
well done on getting pro-active on the recycling.
recycling bins for paper and plastic are pretty much provided in most offices in the UK at the moment but we had an interesting discussion in our office recently on composting food waste from workplaces……
…….a new employee joined our business recently and she was in charge of recycling at her last company – she wanted to compost food waste from the cafeteria and office kitchen so put a bin in place and then took it home. she was then told by the local environment agency that if she wanted to continue to do this she needed to be a licenced waste carrier and her home to be a licenced waste transfer station if it did not go directly to the local composting/recycling centre
how crazy a beaurocratic world is this!
That is crazy! I’ve thought about bringing home the compostables from work for my worms, but honestly, I’m kind of protective of what I feed the worms (being as they live in my kitchen) and I don’t know that I want to open it up to the kind of uncertainty I’m seeing in the mixed recyclables.
Is the recycling for businesses the law in the UK? it’s easy for us Americans to assume that western europe and the UK are miles ahead in terms of regulating environmental activities.
Leanski, I would say “Only in America!” but, well…
It is awfully cool though that you have a local composting centre. One day, maybe NYC will truly understand the cost of not composting all the food waste this city creates.
take the gloves off!!! and knock out that building across the street while you are at it!
kudos to you for being a recycling champion!
I’ll be sure to drop broad hints, neighbor! under this velvet glove is an iron hand!
remember us europeans have more space/land area pressure than you guys!!
Composting food wastes is quite a regulated business due to the animal by-product regulations meaning it all has to be enclosed in IVCs (In Vessel Containers) – people are encouraged to compost vegetable matter at home in their own systems though – other compostables, including meat wastes are collected on a weekly basis and taken to dedicated sites
the big move recently here is for source seperation so we are all allocated seperate bins for recycled materials etc for collection by local authority. plus they only collect non-recyclable/compostable waste every two weeks but anything that can be recycled/composted gets collected on a weekly basis – still early days but in my community it has reduced waste going to landfill.
Right!.. Source separation started few months back here (Reading, UK), and my wife and I are big time recyclers now!.. They also have some educative TV programs, telling people to keep their meat wastes in their fridge (since they’ll start collecting on fortnight basis).
I’d just like to note, Karina, that your commitment to collecting and schlepping the recyclables for your whole entire office is in no way a TINY choice. But you can still keep your post up here, even though this blog is supposed to be about TINY choices. Maybe we should have a category for HUGE choices.
well shoot, Jenn! it’s easier for me than you think b/c I’ve got a car to do all the work. it did start out as a tiny choice – just me taking home my own recyclables. But as you know I can’t do nothin’ small!
I guess that’s the thing about the tiny choices… they end up making a bigger impact than we anticipate.
:)
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