Upon arrival in our new hometown of Portland, we had dinner with an old friend of ours who now works for a large athletic shoe brand also based here. (Can you guess which one?) We were talking about all the amazingly green things about this city and she went on to tell me about a policy at her office that ecopop feels every business should implement.
Unlike most of the offices we've worked in with the token one-recycleable-fits-all container that get magically whisked off and (hopefully) sorted every night by the cleaning crew, this particular office, as well as many others in Portland, require employees to sort their own trash.
They don't simply take their personal trash and recycle bin to a larger trash and recycle container, they have to sort it all out according to materials. While we don't know the exact number of bins, there are quite a few, including ones labeled Paper, Plastic, Glass, Compost, and our favorite, Landfill.
What we love about this policy is that is requires employees to get a better sense of what they are consuming on a daily basis and where it all goes. It shows everyone what can be reused as well as what trash really is: our landfill contribution.
A recycle bin at every desk is good, but a system that requires active participation and education of consumption is one step closer to reducing our waste. The more we learn, the more apt we are to enforcing change in our offices, and perhaps even our homes.
Try it. Get your hands dirty. You'll be amazed at what you might learn and what most cleaning crews already know but don't have the knowledge or power to do anything about it.
  
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