So despite strange looks from their Waste Management (WM) company employees, the Trillium Recycling Committee followed their garbage to the dump one day.  They sorted the whole load by hand (a full week's worth of waste that had just left their plant) and were amazed by the amount of garbage that could have been recycled.  Cheryl's PPT Presentation, given recently to highlight their Best Practice has been posted on the Brockville member webpage.  Note: Photo at right indicates the pile of garbage that the Recycling Committee sorted.  This garbage had just been transported from their building to the Waste management site. 

 (http://www.emccanada.org/membersonl/ontario/brockville/2009/wastereductiontrilliumhcemc2010ppt~2)

It starts with numerous photos of the items that this group sorted and, determined might be recyclable.  Hopefully these items would not show up in their garbage again!  The garbage consisted of plastic bottles of various sizes & shapes, corrugated cardboard boxes, blister foils pacs, opadry boxes, clear plastics bags, cardboard core rolls, extruder waste, plastic drums, super totes, plastic salt bags (use 360 per month) and fiber drums (still actively looking for a recycler for these).

The Presentation given details the retailers that this committee found that will take certain types of waste, the form used and any monies received in return and costs involved in haulage and transportation.  They purchased an additional baler for plastics and some companies provided collapsible plastic totes for sorting purposes.  It was noted that the committee labeled all the bins for the type of waste to make it easy for the employees to recycle.

The Trillium HCP's Committee Goals for 2009 - 10 were to:

• Reduce compactor waste sent to the dump to twice per month instead of four times per month.
• Increase commodity waste dollars coming in for all plastic, cardboard and paper.  This money helps offset waste costs overall.
• Cheryl emphasized that their goal is not to make money - their main gola is to do the "right thing" for the environment & reduce waste going to landfill.

Results:  Trillium Health Care Products has reduced landfill waste by 50% in the past two years!

Advice from Cheryl & her team:

• Audit your on-site waste streams.
• Contact Waste Management (WM) to ask to audit your compactor waste.
• Communicate the program to employees and ensure that you have set up a system to sort recyclables that employees can easily follow.

Also posted on the Brockville webpage is an article found on the internet:  How to Encourage Recycling at your Manufacturing Plant

Congratulations to Cheryl Melcher and her team at Trillium Health Care for all of their hard work on this program and the gratifying results!  You should be proud of your accomplishments.  Thank you for sharing with your peers and we look forward to updates as your program progresses.  This type of challenge provides a great opportunity for us to share experience and knowledge of other recycling opportunities with one another.  If you know of another great source of recycling materials please post this information below.

Best regards

Gay Henniger

Eastern Ontario FSA