Burlington City Hall to reduce its waste!

On September 17, 2009 city staff, with the help of Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD), sorted through one day’s worth of City Hall’s trash and recyclable materials. The goal of this exercise was to discover if city employees properly sort recyclables and trash, and if enough compost is generated weekly to justify beginning a composting program in city facilities. As employees started sorting through trash cans, it quickly became evident that a large portion of what they found was not “TRUE TRASH” and should have been recycled or composted. In fact, in terms of volume, the results of this exercise showed that 1/3 of the materials found in the trash bags were recyclables (33 gallons), another 1/3 could have been composted (32 gallons) and only 1/3 was true trash (32 gallons).

A month-long pilot project has been developed to help educate city staff, reduce the amount of trash generated and hopefully save the city money. This pilot project started with an education session with CSWD to ensure that employees are knowledgeable with regards to recyclables and compostable materials. Next week, trash cans will be removed from individual offices and only a very few trash cans will be located in general and public areas along with compost bins. The hope is that if employees have get up and walk a few feet to dispose of something, they will them be force to make a conscious decision about where to sort their disposables.

Once this pilot complete, staff will report back to the Burlington Sustainability Action Team (BSAT) with the results. If successful, this program could be implemented in all city departments/facilities. The BSAT will be in charge of developing a department-wide approach to waste reduction.