Overview

Recycling practices have become commonplace in office settings. Bottles, cans, and certain paper grades are commodities typically targeted. In most programs, employees have their own bin(s) for acceptable grades of recyclable paper but take their beverage containers to centralized collection bins. Traditional trash cans still sit under or beside each employee’s desk to be emptied by the nightly custodian. Discarded items-with the exception of bottles, cans, and certain grades of paper-end up in the trash can. Recycling levels are generally below 50 percent.

Recently, a new type of office building recycling and waste handling system has achieved 50 percent and higher waste diversion levels. The heart of the system is making employees responsible for their trash by replacing each employee’s deskside trash can with a small mini trash bin.

The mini trash bin can be a “saddle basket” placed on the side of the paper recycling container or a desktop mini trash bin (about the size of a 48-ounce cup). In this system, employees empty their mini trash bins into centralized trash containers and their recycling bins into centralized recycling containers.

Programs with high recycling levels target all paper grades for recovery. Custodial workers no longer go desk-to-desk emptying trash cans. The system achieves high recycling levels because it fundamentally changes the way employees deal with their office discards.

Most employees are surprised when they first see mini trash bins. Then they laugh. Then they come to realize that most of what they discard is recyclable and the mini bin is sufficient to hold the little remaining material they generate.

The Ontario provincial government in Canada spearheaded this mini trash bin system in the 1990s. The system is part of the government’s Maximum Green program (Max Green), which was conceived to further reduce office waste after government workplaces had already met the province’s 50 percent recycling goal.

Max Green is in place in 52 Ontario government buildings and involves approximately 24,000 employees. It has achieved phenomenal success in reducing waste by 75 to 95 percent and saving nearly $1 million on waste disposal costs annually. Potentially, it has saved even more on renegotiated custodial contracts.

The Ontario government program has been replicated in the private sector. The Bank of Nova Scotia, for example, is achieving 80 percent waste diversion in its office buildings using the mini trash bin approach. Public and private sector office settings in the United States have adopted similar programs including the following:

City buildings (San Jose and Oakland, Calif.; Austin, Tex.; Seattle, Wash.; and Valparaiso, Ind.)
Infineon Technologies (San Jose, Calif.)
Del Mar Fairgrounds (Del Mar, Calif.)
Southern California Edison Company
California Integrated Waste Management Board (3-month pilot, Sacramento)
Office building, Northern Illinois University (Dekalb, Ill.)
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
County government buildings (Porter and Spencer counties, Ind.; and Kalamazoo County, Mich.)
Journal Democrat newspaper (Rockport, Ind.)

This model study profiles the experience of the Ontario Max Green mini trash bin program and the City of San Jose’s mini trash bin program. It also shares some stories from other office settings that have adopted the program.

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Last updated: October 26, 2007

Local Government Central http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/LGCentral/
Larry N. Stephens: lstephen@ciwmb.ca.gov (916) 341-6241