 Most people are familiar with curbside recycling for households: homeowners just fill their green or blue bins and put them out with the garbage cans. But what about when a family lives in an apartment building? Sadly, too often, recycling is one of the things property managers overlook. But material waste reduction is going to be a very important issue in years to come, and it’s time for apartment and condo tenants to have the same recycling systems used by individual households. There’s no reason the large amount of bulk paper, glass, plastic and cardboard materials generated by a building should go to a landfill.
Anyone can set up a recycling program for an apartment or condo building, but a few basic considerations will give it a better chance of success. Here are a few things to remember when implementing a long overdue recycling initiative.
Containers
Any recycling program depends on having well-marked containers. It’s best to get a series of large bins and clearly label them “Glass”, “Paper”, “Plastic”, etc. and let tenants do the rest. Lots of buildings may also need a central ‘storage station’ for recyclable materials go get them out of the way until they can be collected.
Scheduling
Another important aspect is scheduled collection. Without this, property managers, tenants and others will be tempted to just dump recyclable content in with the regular trash to get it off-site. Given a chance, many will complain about the “hassle” and “unsightliness” of recyclable materials awaiting collection. Avoid this selfish and unhelpful opposition by making sure everyone knows that recyclable materials WILL be going off-site at a certain time, and double check with your hauler or collector to make sure it will happen.
Feedback and Optimization
A new recycling program works best when everyone is informed and included. Again, a building-wide meeting on the program or posted surveys, will stop individuals from thinking they need to take matters into their own hands and dispose of recyclable materials incorrectly. Talk to everyone in the building and get on the same page to see how the recycling program can be best implemented to benefit everyone. It can also help to solicit suggestions on how to improve the recycling program for better efficient implementation.
With these simple steps, a recycling program can quickly become the norm for a building where residents previously disposed of all of their materials the lazy way. Programs for apartment and condo materials recycling are a great representation of how easy it can be to turn bad practices around and starting looking to conserve and reduce waste.
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