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USDA Headquarters Trash Profile February 2009
Background:
Over the past few months, the USDA Headquarter Complex had a recycle rate of over 40%. This is a significant improvement since FY 2005 when we were recycling about 20% of our waste. Since FY 2006, our waste stream has fallen significantly. We are currently generating less than half the waste as we were in FY 2006. A trash sort was conducting on February 20, 2009 to determine the effectiveness of our Waste Minimization and Recycling Program and to obtain insight to improve our program. Approximately 800 pounds of trash was sorted.
Findings:
Approximately 210 pounds of recyclable materials were removed from the 784 pound sample. This represents 27% of the waste. In January 2009, we disposed of 40.5 tons of waste. We therefore can estimate that 11 tons of the waste was recyclable. Since we recycled over 32 tons in January, we are capturing approximately 75% of the recyclable materials.
Since FY 2007, the amount of newspapers collected has steadily fallen. We are currently collecting less than half of the 15,000 pounds of newspapers we were collecting in FY 2007. The trash sort showed that approximately 4% of the waste stream was newspaper. If we had a 100% recycle rate for newspapers, in January 2009 we would have collected approximately 7,000 (3,600 pounds recycled + 3,200 pounds from the trash) pounds of newspapers which indicates that a drop in the recycling rate is not a major factor in the decline of the newspapers collected.
Over 6% of the trash in the sample was high grade office paper. In FY 2008, that would come to a loss of 50 tons of high grade office paper. In FY 2008 we collected over 175 tons of high grade office paper. That means we are collecting over 75% of the high grade office paper in our recycle program.
Some people are still throwing away stacks of high grade office paper in the trash. Overall, the collection rate for this type of paper is high.
There was virtually no cardboard in the trash stream. The OBSI staff is doing a great job of keeping this out of the waste stream. During inspections of the trash compactor, we notice from time to time that other users will throw cardboard into the trash compactor, but it represents a relatively low percentage of our waste.
Aluminum cans made up ½ to 1% of the sample waste by weight. Assuming ½% our recycle program is missing up to 4 tons of aluminum per year. This represents a very large loss of recoverable resources (27,000 kWh of energy.) We appear to be capturing approximately 50% of the aluminum cans in the complex.
Plastic and glass bottles represented a significant percentage of our waste 6%. Many of the water and soda bottles still had liquids in them which represented another 2% of the waste by weight (a total of 8% of our waste). Many of the bottles still had their caps screwed on which makes them difficult to compact and reduces the volume of trash that our compactors can hold. As a result of trash hauler is hauling a lot of air.
A lot of plastic bottles are still in the trash stream. Though light in weight, they can take up a lot of volume thus unnecessary hauling trips are needed.
Scrap metal was found in the trash. The percentage is small, but easily removed at the office by the custodial staff and placed in the scrap metal bin.
3 pound hole punch found in the trash.
Recommendations:
1. Pilot the use of a trash cart that allows the custodial staff to sort out recyclables in the office. A three-compartment cart would be used in place of the single round cart that is currently used. 2. Improve signage on the hallway recycle containers. Include information on environmental benefits of recycling. 3. Distribute door hangers with latest list of recyclable materials we collect. Many do not know that we can now recycle catalogues and magazines. 4. Train custodial staff on recycling. Make sure they can respond to inquires about our recycle program. Scrap metal from offices (hole punches, staplers, etc should not go in the compactors.)
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