Reduce the Waste Your Building Sends to the Landfill!
How can your building decrease its waste by 30% (Green Office Challenge Base Goal) or 50% (Green Office Challenge Stretch Goal)? Here are a couple of steps that can help you decrease your waste and fulfill these waste reduction goals.
TRACKING YOUR BUILDING'S WASTE
Establish baseline use
Ask your waste hauler for a waste audit of the waste you have produced for the past 12 months. Most waste haulers provide this service complimentary. If your waste hauler doesn’t provide this service, consult the EPA's Waste Assessment Approaches Tutorial or Rutgers Waste Audit tutorial.
Green Tip: When it comes time to renew your contract with your waste hauler, make sure to include provisions that they will provide monthly reports of your waste. This will help you track your waste on an ongoing basis and it will save you time when you conduct waste audits in the future.
Walk-through audit
After reviewing your waste audit, if you realize that your building isn’t recycling as much as it could, walk through your building and analyze opportunities to decrease waste and increase recycling. Also question and discuss with your tenants the placement and regularity of recycling receptacles.
Set a reduction goal
Based on your waste audit for the past 12 months, determine whether you want to reduce your waste by 30% or 50%. Let your tenants know about this goal and work together through a building-wide Green Team to determine how you can reduce your operational waste.
MAKING IMPROVEMENTS
Now that you know how much waste your building produces, you can implement strategies to decrease this waste and increase recycling.
Decrease or eliminate paper towel waste
Determine the amount of paper towels your building uses per month and the cost of this consumption. Utilizing monthly purchasing receipts is a quick and easy way to calculate the answer. Some distributors will provide you with this information upon request.
Calculate the estimated payback of installing hand dryers by using the Hand Dryer Calculator. You will need the information found below before you start using the calculator. If you cannot answer these questions by consulting your monthly purchasing receipts, contact your distributor for the answers.
· Number of cases of paper towels used annually.
· Cost per case delivered (including freight and tax).
· Number of towels per case.
· Your KWH rate. Refer to your electric bills for the past 12 months to answer this question. If this information is not on the bill, contact your electric provider.
Install hand dryers or continuous cloth hand dryers in bathrooms. Determine which hand dryers and cloth hand dryers fulfill the needs of your building tenants and visitors, and which ones are within your budget given the upfront costs and payback period.
Enhance recycling capabilities
The first step to enhancing your building’s recycling capabilities is to ensure that you are compliant with the City of
Green Tip: Create a protocol that requires tenants and contractors to recycle. Include a provision in leases that require tenants to recycle.
Create a joint purchasing program
You can decrease the amount of packaging that your building sends to the landfill and the number of deliveries to your building by creating a joint purchasing program for tenants throughout the building.
Additional Resources
The government of