Boosting Our Recycling Efforts

Our firm's Social Responsibility Committee has been busy this year.  We have implemented composting at the office, which dramatically reduces both our contribution to the landfills and our annual garbage hauling expense.  We are replacing all of our T-8 flourescent lighting with T-12 bulbs, to cut down our energy usage and electric bills.  We held a very successful blood drive at the office and we have a coat drive underway.  And the list goes on.  One of our most interesting activities was a presentation to the firm by a representative of the Chittenden Solid Waste District, our county's solid waste authority, about recycling and composting.  We learned, among other things, that our local solild waste system does not have the capacity to recycle plastic caps and milk cartons but these items are recycled in other locations.  CSWC ends up with huge piles of plastic caps that are put into the recycling system by well-meaning citizens but they are so small, they fall out of the bales of plastic that CSWD bundles up for shipment to recycling plants.  So our  Social Reponsibility Committee sprang into action and discovered that the Aveda company offers plastic cap recycling through partnership with local schools.  The program called Recycle Caps with Aveda allows local schools to collect caps and send them to Aveda for recycling.  A local participating school is the Lawrence Barnes Sustainability Academy, a public magnet school in Burlington.  We contacted the Lawyrence Barnes Sustainability Academey and they were thrilled to have a business as a partner in this program.  So now we collect plastic caps at the office and give them to to the school to be recycles in teh Aveda program.   What a great example of a private-public-private partnership to expand recyclingwher

Don't Blame Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

One of Vermont's biggest employers and success stories is taking heat because one of its most popular products doesn't live up to the environmental standard the company generally strives to maintain.  Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) has had a page on its web site discussing the environmental challenges of K-Cups for years.  The fact is, GMCR customers LOVE the company's Keurig one-cup coffee makers and the K-Cups that go in them.  GMCR's customers choose to use K-Cups rather than GMCR's more environmentally friendly "My K-Cup" alternative, which is a low-cost reusuable version of the K-CUp that the coffee lover fills with ground coffee for each individual cup.  I have first hand experience of this dynamic.  Is this GMCR's fault?  I don't think so.  I have first hand experience of this dynamic.  I have had a Keurig coffee machine at home for several years and it literally changed my life.  My husband must have his "high-test" coffee with lots of caffeine in the morning.  I love coffee but if I drink "high-test" it sends me to the moon on caffeine.  The Keurig allows us each to have the perfect cup without making two pots of coffee every day and pouring most of it down the drain after enjoying one or two cups of each.   I fill "My K-Cups" with ground coffee from GMCR for each cup of coffee and the used grounds go in the compost.  I rarely (can't say never) have a disposable K-Cup to toss out.  But apparently most people prefer to use the disposable K-Cups.   It's similar to how customers apparently rejected the biodegradable snack bag introduced by Sun Chips because it was too noisy.   Lots of customers chose a quiet snacking experience over environmental protection.  If Sun Chips insisted on continuing with the biodegradable bag despite falling sales, all they would do is drive sales to other non-biodegradable chip bags, not save our landfills.  Robust sales at GMCR is good for the economy and good for Vermont.  Yes, I think it would be better if more consumers would use the "My K-Cup" approach rather than disposable K-Cups.  But it probably is asking too much to expect companies like GMCR and Sun Chips to force environmentally conscious behavior on customers who really just want a cup of coffee and some chips.