Composting is WORKING Great in Building A

About 8 months ago Building A switched to A-1 Organics for our composting partner. Since the switch our cost has gone down, our client satisfaction has greatly improved and the amount composted has increased!! Great job everyone and keep up the good work. We are averaging about 5,000 POUNDS of compost from Building A every month. Lots of reduction in the land fill, and making great garden mulch!!!

Benefits of Telecommuting!!

Have you dreamed of telecommuting but just have not woken up yet?? Click on this link and read more… There are a lot of benefits to you, your employer and YES, to the environment if you telecommute even ONE day a month!! Cut and paste this address to your browser, and start saving…http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/how-much-money-would-you-save-by-telecommuting/795?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660

Building A is GOLDEN!!!

YES WE ARE! This year  A has achieved a City of Fort Collins Climate Wise GOLDEN partnership level! It was due to a lot of hard work, cupcakes, trees, paper towels, laughter, cooperation, mulch, and planning. But most of all it was due to the involvement of the Building A folks who rolled up their sleeves and reduced, reused, recycled, planted, ate cupcakes, rode bikes, and cheered us on. Thanks everyone!!!

Dumpster Divers Needed!!

Help! I need experienced and novice dumpster divers to assist in a “Waste Audit” on March 13. We will be sorting one of Building A’s dumpsters to see what exactly is being thrown out, what COULD and SHOULD be recycled, composted, etc. This will help us direct our education energy in the correct direction and reduce the amount of stuff going to land fill via the dumpster! SOOOO if you have a few hours to spare on March 13 and can help out the Green Team I would REALLY appreciate it!! Contact Kathy Sleavin at 5764 or ksleavin@fs.fed.us. The benefits will be AMAZING. You will come away with the best dumpster diving skills in the building, maybe in Fort Collins! You may even be able to compete with the pros downtown. Who knows it could be a TV show tomorrow and an Olympic sport next year……

Which BIN???

Confused about which bin to throw it in?? Here are few helpful hints…
1) If it can DECOMPOSE (food, paper towels) place it in the blue bins in the kitchenettes or inthe restrooms. No plastics or containers with foil please

2) If it can be RECYCLED place it in the single stream recycle container. Look at the list of items posted on these bins
3) Anything else goes in the trash – last option

WHY take the time to sort???

a) It reduces the load at the landfill (future generations will not have to swim in our garbage)
b) It reduces the COST we have to pay to haul and dump at the landfill
c) It creates high quality compost not garbage
d) It creates local jobs

Bike to work day

Bike To Work DAY!!!!

The Green Team hosted another successful Bike to Work Breakfast Station in front of  Building A this morning.  They had an array of beverages, sweet bread (donated by Great Harvest), sweet homemade jam and jellies, sweet banter, biking haikus and free bike chain cleaning (sweeeet!).  It was all good….

newbie Rich

Richard Teck was the star attendee, this was the FIRST time in over nine years that Rich has actually BIKED to work!   It all begins with the first pedal…..

Bruce

Bruce staffed the bike doctor station and did triage on bike chains.  Good thing, as some  on their last link…

CAN the CAN

This is a competition to reduce the number of “garbage” cans emptied and  “garbage can liners” tossed out each night with only one little piece of “garbage” in it.  Essentially we are trying to get office mates to come together and share ONE “garbage” can per work space.  The work space can be a shared room, a quad pod, or any other type of shared working arrangement.  In addition to a “garbage” can the office mates should have easy access to the blue “single stream recycle” bins.  Folks in private offices can just put their “garbage” cans outside their office when they want them emptied.

The maintenance staff will have fewer “garbage” cans to handle and fewer liners to toss into the land fill.  The tradeoff is the maintenance staff will now be handling our paper towel recycle bins!

So get together with your office mates and CAN the CAN!!  Bring your excess garbage cans to the lobby and start a stack with your unit’s name on it.  Lets see which unit can CAN the most CANS (prorate by the number of people in the unit)….

Remember, it takes a whole Unit to reduce the size of the landfill (or something like that)…

To Compost, or not To Compost?

As we approach the “Day of Composting”, many of you have been ruminating over the big question “To Compost, or not to Compost?”  I thought I would start a guide to this cosmic question ……

Good Compost

• Used paper Towels
• Banana peels
• Coffee grounds

Questionable Compost

• Irritating office mates
• Broken office chairs
• Young children

“What were You Thinking?” Compost

• Cats(They use it as a litter box and they hiss!)
• Items from “Clean the Fridge day”
• Teens (they must be pre-treated)

PS: the right to dumpster dive in the compost bins is one of the CFC auction items this year

PS: if you place something in the compost bin and later have second thoughts, you MUST submit a BASE ticket

Composting is Coming!!!

A large amount of our building’s garbage is used paper towels from the restrooms and kitchenettes.  Your wonderful Green Team has tackled this problem and will soon have bins for all compostables, including used paper towels, picked up weekly!!  Soon you will see the following…

– Composting bins located in all kitchenettes, and the Convenience Store, for food or paper towels

– Bins in the restrooms for used paper towels

– Compostable liners in the composting bins (way cool!)

What can YOU do to help make this project a green success?

– Throw compostable items, and only compostable items, in the composting bins

– Reduce the number of office trash cans the custodians have to check each evening.  This will help make up for the additional work of dealing with the composting bins.  If you work in a common area, use one trash can per area not one per desk!  Let’s CAN THE CAN (more about this effort later)