Home > Business Journals > Alaska Business Monthly

The ways in which recycling pays: large or small, there are ways your company can help the environment.(Corporate recycling is g

By Deborah J. Myers | Alaska Business Monthly - Sept, 2005

Get the Mag

Weekly Updates

[-] Text Size [+]

Who hasn't heard the mantra, "Reduce, reuse, recycle"? Environmentalists urge private citizens and companies to reduce waste, reuse what they can and recycle what they can't to positively impact the Earth. Although many people recycle for the personal "feel good" aspect, businesses also must consider how corporate recycling affects the budget.

Corporate recycling has grown in the past 15 years, largely because of its "gaining a much greater profile," said Sean Skaling, executive director at Anchorage-based Green Star.

PUBLIC IMAGE

It's a no-brainer that recycling is great for PR. In fact, recyclable hauler Mark Girmscheid, owner of Girmscheid Enterprises in Anchorage, said that "the majority of my customers do it for face value so that when they have customers looking for an environmentally friendly company, they look good.

"It's a frontier mentality of 'just bury it already.' Those who want to spend the four to five hours a month to recycle do it. In Alaska, it is a face value thing."

A good image can bolster the bottom line.

Skaling said that some corporate recyclers "are motivated by money, and others were motivated because it's the right thing to do."

Some companies make it a point to only partner with other companies that recycle. Since recycling doesn't seem to offend any population of clients, it makes sense to appeal to the segment that embraces the "Three R's."

Recycling can also attract "green" applicants who would prefer a company with principles that align with their own.

Recycling glass can improve safety a little. Because recycled glass is sorted out from regular trash, employees thus avoid cutting themselves when handling it.

REDUCING WASTE HAULING

Companies that generate lots of corrugated cardboard, plastic shrink-wrap or other bulky waste can save in their waste hauling by recycling the items, according to Skaling.

"(Cardboard) fills up the Dumpster more quickly," he said. "Recycling pays back. That's where we've seen the biggest success. Anything that's voluminous can save some money."

Fisher agrees.

"Do a waste assessment to see what you're generating, the types, and how much it costs to throw it away and what the processes are for throwing it away," she said. "Many companies pay for a Dumpster that isn't full."

Green Star provides waste assessment and help in developing a strategy for recycling.

For companies that don't generate much of any particular recyclable category, it is less expensive and easier to trash it instead of paying for the administrative overhead of gathering, organizing and sorting it, if one considers only the black-and-white cost of getting rid of the items. The loss in revenue because of deterred customers and applicants is hard to measure, as is the cost to society and the environment; however, recycling pays in still another way.

SELL RAW RECYCLABLES

In large enough volume, the recyclables themselves can be valuable.

"Businesses can reap benefits from recycling by selling their recyclables to (recycling) centers," said Mary Fisher, executive director of Alaskans for Litter Prevention & Recycling in Anchorage.

Recycling centers use the materials or process them for others to use to make a wide array of consumer and industrial goods. Some items are reincarnated into different objects (such as plastic cups being made into picnic tables) and other items are made into the same items (such as aluminum cans entering a karmic loop of use, processing and re-use as cans). Because the raw items have value, companies able to generate enough recyclable materials can cash in.

Girmscheid cautions that for little companies, the revenue received by selling a small amount of recyclables negates the financial benefit in selling it.

"I am for recycling, but I'm a realist," he said.

Some companies, though sizable, do not generate enough of one type of recyclable to warrant selling it.

DONATE USED ITEMS

Instead of trashing scrap materials or used equipment, some companies obtain a tax write-off by donating them to a charitable organization, school or other nonprofit. Donating also reduces the amount of waste that goes to a landfill and provides an excellent community service.

MAKE THE PROGRAM COST-EFFECTIVE

The administrative cost of recycling compared to the cost of using a landfill discourages some companies from recycling.

"Trash is relatively inexpensive here," Skaling said. "If a business is just looking at economics, and if trash were twice as expensive as recycling, recycling would be more popular."

If selling recyclables won't work for your business because of size or other factors, Skaling's company recommends a tactic to make it more affordable: share recycling with like companies to reduce cost.

"We share a pick-up service with every business in our building," he said of Green Star. "Rather than being $40 per month, it's $5 to $10 per month for each of us."

He is hoping to use their experience as a pilot program for applying to other businesses.

"We want to get as many participants as we can to set them up with something that works for them," he said.

Fisher recommends that companies use existing trucks or other company vehicles to drop off recyclables instead of hiring a service to do so.

Developing an effective system for recycling is the key to making a company greener.

"It's another process you have to incorporate into the facilities management systems," Fisher said. "It's also a cultural change within the organization. Those two things put some sort of pressure on the system by the fact that they have to do things differently than before."

Corporate Express' revamped recycling program, for example, used enlisted employee volunteers to keep things running smoothly.

"We started rallying interest and formed a 'Green Team,'" said Marcia Kidd, an inside account manager with the company. "It wasn't organized or formal (before)."

Employees viewed the program as theirs, not a policy change handed down by upper-level management. By designating in-house leaders, more employees wanted to jump on the green bandwagon. The Green Team toured a recycling facility, to see how items are separated and what items were needed to make sure their efforts were helpful.

The Green Team also brainstormed for ways to make recycling easier, such as plainly marking bins, posting directions for recycling in a prominent area, using bins that are easily moved on wheels, and placing bins in strategic places (like bins for paper near the fax and copier machines and ones for aluminum cans in the breakroom).

Corporate Express further enhance the program by asking a few employees to "adopt" a bin to monitor its contents for contamination, record its weight and dump it into larger bins regularly. Some employees took so much ownership over "their" bins that they decorated them!

The company also sent blanket e-mails on pick-up day so employees would not forget to empty their desk-side collection of recycled paper into their area's bins and the area bins into the larger containers for semimonthly pick-up.

"It was a process that worked very easily," Kidd said, "and it is a successful program. We made it so easy to recycle that we had huge support."

The company keeps track of the recycled tonnage going out their doors to spur employees on to recycle more. Periodically, the new figures are posted to encourage more recycling. Periodic contests keep the excitement level high, too.

When new employees join the company, the orientation includes training on how to use Corporate Express' recycling program. When someone leaves the company, any "orphaned" bins are reassigned to new employees.

Fisher encourages companies like Corporate Express that have instituted a successful recycling program to review their plans periodically to ensure they are still working effectively.

Although a recycling program takes time and may cost some companies to maintain, its rewards are more than monetary.

"A lot of businesses do it because it's the right thing to do," Skaling said. "We're a consumption society and we consume, some say, more than what is natural upon the earth.

"It makes sense to recycle a can back into a can instead of mining for more aluminum."

He sees a bright outlook for business recycling in Alaska.

"A lot more materials are being accepted at the Anchorage Recycling Center," he said. "For the last few years, more and more products have come on board."

The more items that are accepted, the more money companies can make on selling their items and the easier recycling becomes.

With more carriers joining the ranks, the competition for recyclables drives down the cost of recycling as well.

"At most workplaces, there's some level of recycling going on," Skaling said. "but we can find some areas to improve."