Waste audit looks at what is, isn’t being reused

Published Nov. 21, 2007
By Corey Dahl
21st Space Wing Public Affairs

PETERSON AFB, Colo. -- Dumpster diving is usually frowned on here, but for a group of Peterson employees, crawling in refuse Nov. 15 was just another day on the job.

In honor of America Recycles Day, members of the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron and contractors from Booz Allen Hamilton and Resource Geoscience, Inc., dug through a week's worth of trash from Dorm 1170. The group sorted out all the recyclables to find out how much - or how little - Airmen in the dorms are taking advantage of recycling bins.

"We're trying to get an idea of how many recyclables are getting sent to the landfill," said Phil Chase, pollution prevention manager with the 21st CES. "There's a lot of stuff that's getting thrown in the dumpster when it could be recycled."

An audit of the dorm's trash found 64 pounds of cardboard, 25 pounds of plastic and 47 pounds of newspapers that could have been recycled. About 13 pounds of recyclable office paper, aluminum and tin were also pulled out of the dumpster.

Those trashed recyclables not only represent an unnecessary load on our area landfills but also a loss of revenue for the base. Peterson makes money on recyclables it sends off base -materials like cardboard can fetch about $100 per ton. That money is credited to the base's overall garbage bill, helping offset the cost of trash removal.

One dorm residents said he would recycle if there were a conveniently-located program.

"I don't recycle because there is no program that I know of for dorm residents," said Airman 1st Class John Orem, an intelligence analyst with the 21st Operations Support Squadron and dorm resident. "There's a lot of people who live in the dorms and we generate a lot of trash. If they were to have recycle bins conveniently located, I would (recycle)."

Assuming the same amount of recyclables is being thrown out each week in Dorm 1170, the group estimates the building is costing the base roughly $1,200 in recycling revenue each year. If the same amount of recycling is assumed for all of the 10 residential facilities on base, the amount of revenue lost creeps up to a little more than $12,000.

The group annual waste audit runs from October to early December. Trash from seven different buildings will be examined on three different occasions. Mr. Chase said he expects to find even more misplaced recyclables.

"Little by little, it's gotten better over the years, but we could really be doing a lot more," Mr. Chase said. "It's really hot and cold. Some people really get behind it, and some people just say, 'Well...'"

Mr. Chase said he and his crew will take the results to base buildings at the beginning of the year to start working with facilities managers on ways to improve. The key, he said, is to make recycling easy. Possible solutions could include increasing recycle baskets in a building or educating employees on the benefits of recycling.

"We want to figure out what we can do to get the installation to recycle more," he said. "With a little bit of extra effort, we could be recycling a lot more of our materials. It's really just as easy as walking over and throwing something in the blue bin instead of the trash can."