1 Recycling At EPA Sustainable Facilities Practices Branch July 16, 2009

2 Recycling’s Environmental Benefits: Saves energy Reduces pollution and green house gases Conserves natural resources Decreases the amount of material put into landfills

3 Recycling’s Financial Benefits: Recycling materials is often cheaper than disposing of the materials as waste. By recycling materials, you might actually earn revenue while reducing waste disposal costs.

4 Typical Recycled Materials at EPA Paper Corrugated cardboard Plastic bottles (#1 and #2) Aluminum, steel, and tin cans Glass bottles

5 Other Materials Recycled at EPA Toner cartridges and ink jet cartridges Electronic equipment (e.g., computers, monitors, fax machines) Batteries Cell Phones Technotrash Tyvek ® envelopes Metal hangers Cooking oil Oil and oil filters Fluorescent tubes and bulbs Solvents Polystyrene packaging material and polystyrene peanuts Plastic grocery bags Shrink wrap Tires

6 Recycling can also include the following activities: Composting food scraps, lawn clippings, and other organic material Reusing office supplies Donating office supplies, computers, and laboratory equipment

7 Recycling locations at EPA Newspaper, bottles and cans, and trash are collected in public series bins. Mixed office paper is collected in all offices and copy rooms. Newspaper and bottles and cans are collected in pantries. Corrugated cardboard is collected outside offices. Spent rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries and toner cartridges are collected in copy rooms.

8 EPA’s Recycling Manual EPA developed a Headquarters Recycling Manual for its standardized recycling program as an informational and educational tool for its employees.

9 Headquarters Recycling Manual Photographs of Headquarters’ standard bins Checklists for implementing and monitoring recycling in Headquarters’ buildings The creation of a “Slim Bin” character that is used for educational and promotional materials Samples of educational campaign artwork, such as: –Posters –Bin labels –Flyers –Slim Bin costume

10 Toner Cartridge Poster

11 Mixed Office Paper Poster

12 Bottles and Cans Poster

13 Where Should I Recycle Poster

14 Mixed Office Paper Bin Label

15 Slim Bin Character Costume

16 Metrics One of the most important features of the standardized program is to be able to track: –How much trash is being thrown away –How much material is being recycled EPA used the first year of data collection as a baseline. From that baseline, we can easily measure the progress of its recycling program by determining a recycling rate.

17 Recycling Rate To calculate a recycling rate, you simply:

18 For More Information, Contact… Dexter Johnson (202)