Americans throw away enough office and writing paper each year to build a wall 12-feet high stretching from New York City to Los Angeles. If all that paper were actually recycled, 100 million tons of wood could be saved each year.
Per year, the average American now uses enough energy to release into the atmosphere about 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the major contributor to global warming.
People in the U.S. throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet. Aluminum takes 500 years to break down, but recycling one aluminum can saves enough electricity to run a TV for three hours.
Every day, Americans churn out 3.5 pounds of garbage. If lined up bumper to bumper, a string of garbage trucks hauling the nation's daily waste could reach halfway to the moon.
Recycling helps . . .
- Save Energy - Using energy requires the consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels and contributes to air and water pollution. Manufacturing goods from recycled material uses less energy than making those items from raw natural resources. For example, recycling aluminum takes only 5% of the energy needed to manufacture it from raw material. Overall, recycling saves enough energy each year to provide heat and light for 400,000 homes.
- Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Three Ways
- Reduce emissions from energy consumption. As stated above, manufacturing from recycled materials requires less energy. When less energy is used, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere.
- Reduce methane emissions from landfills. By diverting organic materials from landfills, we reduce the methane released when these materials decompose.
- Increase storage of carbon in trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in wood. Waste prevention and recycling of paper products allow more trees to remain standing in the forest, which helps air quality.
- Reduce Emissions of Air and Water Pollutants - Manufacturing products using virgin materials and disposing of wastes produces 27 different types of pollutants. The recycling process produces these pollutants in smaller quantities.
- Conserve Natural Resources - Recycling reduces the size of and need for landfills, allowing land to be used in more environmentally preferable ways. In addition, by substituting scrap materials for the use of lumber, metal ores, minerals, oil, and other natural resources, recycling reduces the pressure to expand forestry and mining production.
The Basics of Recycling in Your Workplace…
Most recycling programs in office buildings consist of (1) collecting recyclable materials such as office papers, cardboard, glass and aluminum and (2) disposing them into the recycling bins at a loading dock or garbage pick-up area.
Any office trash containing discarded food products, sticky pads, or tape is considered non-recyclable, as is trash collected from restrooms and food service facilities.
Normally, someone in your office or building is assigned to oversee this process and ensure recyclables are disposed of properly. With our experience in this area, Advanced Building Maintenance can help you plan, implement, communicate and monitor your program.
You and Your Janitorial Company…
The recycling effort begins with the office tenants who take part in the program. Each person uses two trash containers, one for recyclables and the other for non-recyclables, Advanced Building Maintence personnel circulate the building also
Advanced Building Maintenance takes the trash containers to the garbage pick-up area where we are responsible for placing the recyclable and non-recyclable trash in their appropriate compactors/containers. Usually these are color coded: For example, blue containers are used for the collection of recyclable trash and black for the non-recyclable trash.
Advanced Building Maintenance meets with you on a regular basis, so that our onsite project team can provide ongoing updates on the program.
Recycling, Advanced Building Maintenance and LEED Certification
When ABM is part of your waste recycling efforts, your building is positioned to earn Materials and Resources Credit 5 under the LEED- EBOM Rating System. The intent of this credit is to reduce waste and toxins generated by building occupants and building operations that are hauled to and disposed of in landfills or incineration.
Adding other items to your recycling program - such as raw and mixed metals, plastics, batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, and plastics - furthers your cause. Collecting and recycling 95% of the batteries and fluorescent light bulbs used is a requirement for this credit. Documentation is also required for the percentage of diverted/recycled total waste stream, which is 30-50%, depending on the number of credits you choose to earn in this area
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