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I am looking for some help/advice regarding a project I want to get started at work. I want to highlight reduce, re-use and recycle!
I work in an average size office (500ish staff) which is part of a massive company and we have initiatives in place to recycle paper and cans etc but people don't use them so I am looking to try and cajole the unwilling into being a bit more responsible.
I could do with advice on how I might be able to do this and any websites that you might know of that have any advice.
Any useful tips and suggestions would be most appreciated!
Where I work they provided separate bins for paper, plastic bottles and cans and general waste in communal areas and then removed the waste bins from everyone's desk! It wasn't very popular because people had to get up to throw their stuff away (!) but it did rapidly increase the amount of recycling done.
We are now in a compromise situation with people not too far from a little waste bin, but with the recycling bins still in place and most people do seem to be using them (although sometimes I walk past people's desks and pull recyclables out of their bins! )
The place I work for has an environment committee. They decide together which steps to take to make people more compliant... It's so much easier if there is a group behind the "nagging" than just a single person. There are posters put up about how much electricity a copier uses when left on over night and other information along those lines. Doesn't mean that everybody sticks to it, but it makes people think. I personally work within a small unit apart from the institute, and my dear colleagues know that they get very dirty looks from me (and no biscuits with their coffee for the next week !!!) if they don't put their rubbish where it belongs!
I am still reeling at the moment as I found out that we currently produce 6 industrial bins of waste THREE times a week! I work in a call centre for goodness sake - we don't make anything this is just paper, boxes and general foodie rubbish - arggh
Anyway it looks like I have my work cut out! Cheers again and anymore suggestions will help greatly!
There's a really good charity called Future Forests (www.futureforests.com I think) they help you calculate how much carbon you use and how many trees would need to be planted to offset it, making you Carbon Neutral.
You can then buy the trees which they plant in their forests both in the Uk and worldwide (I think you can specify which site you want your trees to be planted in).
The point is you can either do this as a individual or as an organisation so maybe you could try to get your company to buy some trees.
Having 'green champions' is an excellent way to get recycling and waste minimisation schemes up and running - it has certainly worked well where I work and we now recycle around 60% of our waste (which was previously going to landfill).
A good way to get buy in is to get demonstrate how much money people will save if they reduce, reuse and recycle. For instance I think you said you produce six bin loads of waste a week(?) that I assume would just go to landfill. If you can find out how much your company are charged per bin then you can work out how much money you'll save in a year if you reduce your waste by 1 bin load and so on. It is surprising how much it adds up. Putting a monetary value/cost saving value on things like this is also a good way to get top management interested and if they are on board it is amazing how many people suddenly start joining in.
A good place to look for more information is www.envirowise.gov.uk they do a free booklet which you can order called 'Green officency:running a cost-effective, environmentally aware office' which is full of loads of useful information not just relating to recycling. Also have loads of other booklets catered for different industries etc.
so I am looking to try and cajole the unwilling into being a bit more responsible.
)
!!!) if they don't put their rubbish where it belongs!
