Make Less of a Mess

Businesses produce 40% of the garbage in the U.S. Here's how to clean up your act

Marcos Chin

by Amy S. Choi

PAPER, GLASS, PLASTIC, ALUMINUM

It starts with the paper cups that hold your morning caffeine fix. Then come the stacks of junk mail, which get added to the old business cards, notebooks, and page after page of outdated sales reports. Each employee typically uses 1.5 pounds of paper every day, only half of which is recycled. If your municipality doesn't have a curbside recycling program in place, check Earth911 for a list of local private recyclers.

After all that junk's been recycled, start buying post-consumer. For a list of vendors of recyled products, go to epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/procure/database.htm. For recyled paper in bulk, try conservatree.com. More green office supplies, as well those custom-printed with your logo, can be found at the greenoffice.com and sustainablegroup.net.

PRINTERS

Like cats, ink cartridges have many lives -- they can be refilled up to four times. Still, roughly 167 million ink cartridges are dumped in landfills annually. Most manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, and Xerox, offer free shipping for the return of cartridges. Remanufacturers, which often partner with recyclers, will take newer equipment for refilling and resale. Search Earth911 or the Basel Action Network for local ink and toner cartridge recyclers. Next time, make sure to buy printers and copiers with a long-lasting print drum that requires only toner refills.

FOOD OR OTHER ORGANIC WASTE

Stale croissants from your sales meeting, half-eaten lunches, and science experiments in the staff fridge can create toxic greenhouse gases if added to landfills. Sleek, odorless composters eat up food and even paper scraps, creating a nutrient-rich mix for your office plants. The NatureMill Automatic Indoor Composter, at $299, comes in several colors and is perfect for a small staff. A variety of composters can be found on GreenCulture's Web site, composters.com. For more info, try the U.S. Composting Council, compostingcouncil.org. Elsewhere in the kitchen, use eco-friendly supplies like utensils and plates made from biodegradable bamboo or bioplastics from retailers such as Green Home, dgs.greenhome.com.

COMPUTERS

Time to get rid of that battered laptop? Do it now. The longer it sits, the harder it will be to refurbish and resell it. Otherwise, it will add to the 1.5 billion pounds of electronic waste produced in the U.S. every year. If you have just a few computers, bring them to Staples, which partners with recycler Amandi Services and charges $10 per machine. If you've got dozens to dispose of, the Basel Action Network can help you find a responsible recyler. Fees are based on shipping charges and the amount of toxins present in the device. And consider buying new machines from manufacturers with take-back policies and recycling businesses, such as Dell and Apple.

MOBILE PHONES

There are more than 750 million retired mobile phones in the U.S., shelved or tossed in favor of a newer model. Some 155 million go out of service each year. Phones that find their way into the trash can leach toxins from arsenic and antimony to cadmium and lead. CollectiveGood, at collectivegood.com, will take your mobile phones, pagers, PDAs, chargers, and batteries. Through its GreenPhone program, it may even pay you up to $125 for your phone, depending on make and model. CollectiveGood reuses about 60% of the phones it receives; the rest are recycled to create 20 different usable metals. Just remember to erase your SIM card before sending in your phone.