Office Paper Recycling Trial
More than 122 tonnes of paper is thrown away in Southland each week - or consuming the equilavent of a forest of 1,586 trees
The Trial
Radio Works Southland and MoreFM are participating in an Invercargill City Council Office Paper Recycling Trial. The purpose of the 3 to 6 month Trial is to develop a sustainable paper recycling system for Radio Works Southland and MoreFM.
Radio Works Southland found that a barrier for their organisation to recycle paper was the lack of a container to collect the paper and who could pick up the product for recycling. With advice from Council's Waste Minimisation Officer, Donna Peterson, Radio Works were gifted a 240 litre wheelie bin for the collection of paper and for their staff room, a recycling container to collect their plastic milk bottles and aluminium cans. Donna also provided them with contacts for the Southland companies that could empty the bins.
Over the coming months, Kelly Bush from Radio Works Southland will be keeping us informed of their progress, through her Blog.
If you have any questions for comments for either Kelly (Radio Works Southland) or Donna (Invercargill City Council), please contact us.
The Blog
Waste Less Live More - 12:20pm Friday August 29 2008
I started at Radioworks in Dec 07 and arrived to about 20 years worth of paper! Coming from Vodafone head office in AKL that was newly built with the design of an (almost) paperless office and with every Environmental initiative possible thought of I had definitely had a challenge on my hands with Radioworks.
What I found on my arrival was piles of paper under peoples desk, paper thrown straight in the bin along with all Milk bottles cans etc. Now I don’t confess to being a super green freak but this did no make sense.
With a couple of simple changes we could have Radioworks recycling in no time … or so I thought. So I went about trying to find someone to supply a bin for paper recycling, but what I cam up against was brick wall after brick wall.
That’s when I spoke with Donna from ICC to see if she could help us out.
She came up with the fantastic idea of a joint initiative to trail the paper waste that comes out of our office. In exchange for us monitoring the paper waste we were supplied with a big green bin to use along with a crate for kitchen recycling. After a few email and phone calls we were delivered out green bin. This has been placed in our reception area. All staff have been given a box to place under their desk for paper that is to be recycled which can be emptied into the larger bin when full.
So far we have had great success. There has been the odd wise crack about recycling but most people are starting to recycle.
We have emptied our bin once so far, with another empty coming up in the next few days. Southland Enterprises come and collect the paper waste for us and take it to be recycled.
Also our cleaner has pointed out that she use to have about a bag of rubbish a day from our office but now she only has a half a bag for 2 days.
Great work from the team here at Radioworks
- Kelly.
|
