Innovation + Responsibility

"Ottomeister's" comment on my "Redeemable Behavior" entry was dead-on.  The signs in the cafeteria are poorly placed and poorly worded - two features that are sure not to move people to action!  Don't get me wrong - Sun employees are smart enough to realize that recycling shouldn't go away with the new "green" cafeteria initiative.  And if they are doing it at home, why aren't they doing it at work, too (or at least wondering how to do it at work)? (I've been saying this for a while but as this recent survey shows, most people don't bring their green selves to work with them!)  Nonetheless, the signs are doing nothing to modify behavior and increase recycling. 

 
So yesterday I emailed the President of Guckenheimer, who by now is surely sick of hearing from me, but who once again displayed an excellent level of service to Sun!   He immediately forwarded my email to the VP of Operations and by early morning today I had a message from Guckenheimer's Director of N. American operations. 

 
I learned that Guckenheimer, like me, is none too pleased about the fact that folks are throwing trash into the recycling and composting bins. Why? Well, for one thing, they are really trying to eco-fy their operations and we aren't helping any!  Did you know that at the end of the day the janitorial staff has to go through those recycling and composting bins to get rid of the materials that aren't supposed to be there - namely the trash - so that they can properly dispose of the rest of it? I had no idea!  I figured  that if trash went in to the recycling bin, the recycling bin essentially just became a trash bin.  Not so!  It remains recycling, but now it is contaminated by trash and so someone has to dig through and separate out what can be salvaged for recycling.   Not only is this a total waste of time, in the long term this can be a total waste of money, too. Think about it - if the janitorial staff is spending extra time sorting our trash (rather than us sorting it ourselves), perhaps their labor costs will go up...which will translate directly into increased costs for Guckenheimer which means cafeteria prices at Sun will increase eventually.  But we can nip this in the bud!

 
So, we (the Guckenheimer Director of N. American Operations and I) committed to finding a solution that would address this issue operationally (what signs should we put where? how many recycling bins should we have and where should they go?) as well as behaviorally (how can we get Sun employees to bring their green selves to the cafeteria and separate their recycling from their trash?).

 
How will we do it? To be honest, I am not exactly sure. One idea the Guckenheimer folks are going to try is this:

This sign will replace the (admittedly confusing) signs there now:

Those bins will go back to just being trash.

So where will employees recycle? Well, this sign is going up over the tray return area:

 So employees will leave recyclables and compostables on their trays and the cafeteria staff will take care of it behind the line. This way they are not going through trash at the end of the day trying to separate everything out. They can do it as the items come through the tray return.

 I'm not sure this will work but it's definitely worth a try. Oh, and this will happen at all campuses in North America, not just Menlo Park.

Additionally,  we are going to get together - me, the Guckenheimer folks, the property management folks and the janitorial contractor - and see what else we can figure out - more recycling bins around the cafeteria, around the campus, etc.  I'll be sure and update this space with the results of our discussion and collaboration.

Anyone have any good ideas? Let me know and I can bring them up at our meeting!