JUNE 2009 - JOB SITE RECYCLING

I announced in February that we were starting a company-wide job site recycling program, and I'm happy to say that although we got off to a bit of a bumpy start, it's going well!

As I mentioned in that post, we got off to a very quick start, notifying our employees at the same time that we were building containers.  One issue that did come up right away from our warehouse personnel was the need for a cardboard dumpster.  In general, cardboard will come in from a job site all at once, requiring a much larger volume of space than the containers they were building.  This is where things got bumpy.

It took some time to find the best option for cardboard recycling.  I looked into the possibility of cardboard recyclers placing a dumpster on our property, but that wasn't common practice.  I ended up going to waste disposal companies for quotes, and signed a contract in the beginning of April.  That delayed cardboard recycling for over a month, but other items were coming in, so I wouldn't say it was a total loss.

Our program has been moving full speed ahead since then, and it couldn't have happened without the help of our warehouse personnel, so I'd like to send out a big ‘Thank You!' to Bill, Mike, Matt and Ray for all of their hard work. 

Of course, the program couldn't be a success without the hard work and dedication of our electricians in the field, who are responsible for the initial collection and sorting of materials.  To both motivate and reward them for their recycling efforts, we began a job site recycling incentive program that rewarded our first job site June 1^st for their outstanding recycling efforts with lunch for the crew.  You can read the announcement in the "It Pays to Go Green" section of the newsletter.

I had mentioned that our waste disposal company is handling our cardboard recycling, but you may be wondering how we handle the rest of our materials.  Since we were already recycling scrap metals, copper wire, lamps and ballasts, we're using the same recyclers, but for new materials, like Styrofoam packing materials, we're using recyclers listed on the BuffaloRecycles.com Recycling Directory.  The directory lists recyclers in the WNY region by material for just about anything you or your company may want to recycle, so check it out!