Trash Talk

Agency waste reduction committee does the dirty work

During six weeks in March and April of this year, members of the Illinois EPA’s waste reduction committee toured the Agency before and after hours, visually checking garbage roll-offs and recycling bins to get a feel for the amount of recycling being done in-house. Then came the fun part.

On four nights, housekeeping staff dumped their collected goodies into big orange trash bags and hauled them to the loading dock, where committee members donned plastic gloves, safety glasses and tyvek, tried to remember which part of their job descriptions covered this sort of thing, and dug in.

The good news was that many of the approximately 1,000 employees at the Springfield IEPA headquarters routinely separate their office waste and put aluminum cans, outdated microfiche, junk mail and used envelopes into appropriate workplace recycling containers. The not-so-good news was that not everybody was doing it.

The Agency has offered recycling for some items–glass, newspaper, aluminum and office-generated white and mixed paper –- since the ‘80s, both with an internal program and as part of the I-CYCLE program involving other state facilities. To emphasize the importance of recycling, and to improve participation, a waste reduction committee at IEPA began meeting in May 1998. As options arose, new recycling choices were offered.

A recycled products guide listing more than 20 companies that sell items made from recycled materials has been compiled by the committee and a procurement subcommittee is identifying other areas where purchase of items with recycled content would be feasible. Getting into the spirit, the maintenance section provided picnic tables and benches made from recycled plastic “lumber” for outdoor break areas.

Still to come: development of an Agency wide waste reduction, recycling and product procurement policy, followed by annual physical/visual waste audits to determine effectiveness of the policy.

A day’s accumulation of trash can gleanings from five main areas at the Illinois EPA’s Springfield office await examination.

The bags were weighed as a first step in determining a density factor.

Next the bags were dumped and the contents sorted by type.

Recyclables were further sorted.

Amounts and types of recyclables were recorded for each area.

“Why did they throw that out?”

A waste audit resembles instant archaeology.

The plastic sorting sheet contains the final waste on its way to the dumpster.