Contest Could Boost Office Paper Recycling

The Green Office Challenge, an initiative that includes a focus on recycling within the workplace, has been adopted by four additional local governments. The Challenge was created by the City of Chicago and non-profit group ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA.

The Green Office Challenge has been designed to help property owners or tenants “achieve strategies that reduce energy use, waste, and water use,” according to the initiative’s Web site.

The four new local governments that will be joining Chicago in the challenge are: the City of Charleston, S.C.; Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn.; the City of San Diego/Port of San Diego, Calif.; and Arlington County, Va.

ICLEI says that because of the program’s success in Chicago (where it was launched last year), many local governments have expressed interest in the Green Office Challenge. “ICLEI is working to make the program replicable for local governments across the country [and] a first step is to develop the program in these four pilot communities, which will receive guidance and technical support from ICLEI,” says the organization in a news release.

Among the recycling-related goals for office tenants, according to the Green Office Challenge Web site, are:

• conducting a waste stream audit with a goal of achieving a 50 percent landfill diversion rate;

• developing a green purchasing policy to procure green products where feasible;

• establishing a recycling policy that codifies all office recycling practices in coordination with a building’s recycling services provider;

• purchasing individual recycling bins placed at employee desks (or at a centralized location nearby), and verifying that the cleaning staff separates the recyclables from the trash;

• purchasing post-consumer recycled paper products; and

• offering recycling services cell phones, rechargeable batteries, used printer cartridges and alkaline batteries.

More information on the Green Office Challenge can be found at www.chicagogreenofficechallenge.org.