Start Recycling At Work
Assess Your Current Situation
- If you do not currently manage your waste needs find out who does. It is important that you have their support if you want to start/enhance the recycling program. Facility managers, property managers and landlords commonly make decisions regarding waste services.
- Know the size, quantity and number of pickups of your collection containers.
- Look inside your containers to see what type of materials are currently being thrown away or recycled.
- Look inside your containers to see if they are full, overloaded or if you have plenty of room on a regular basis.
- Know what space you will have available to place collection containers.
After you have a basic understanding of your business' current needs, please contact one of San José's franchised haulers and ask for a waste assessment.
Many haulers provide services to support your recycling efforts. Don't be shy about asking what they can offer besides collection. Staff presentations, educational materials and desk side containers may be available to you. If your business has a janitorial service, don't forget to educate them about your new program.
Once you have a recycling program in place, you may want to think about other ways to help your business become green like:
- Buy eco-friendly office supplies
- Appoint an in-house recycling coordinator
- Get employees on board to reduce their wastes
Check out the City of San José’s Recycle@Work Intranet to learn more about the City’s employee recycling program. This website is an example of how to implement a recycling program at work and outreach that could be used.
The City’s program has been in place for over 10 years, and since then, employees have recycled over 6,000 tons of paper, cardboard, cans and bottles – enough to save 85,000 trees and 15,000 barrels of oil.
The City also recently launched a leading-edge, expanded Recycle@Work program increasing the types of recyclables collected and further sorting garbage at all City facilities for additional recyclables and compostable materials. This makes San José one of the best performing City facility recycling programs in the nation.
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