Great, everybody’s hand shot up! Fortunately, everybody can take advantage of recycling’s benefits. EPA’s firing up a program specifically designed to help businesses reduce costs and improve their environmental performance.

For example, EPA just gave $35,000 to Stop Waste.org, based in Oakland, CA, to run seminars that teach businesses how to reduce their reliance on paper, cardboard and wood pallets.

One of the keys to reducing waste and cutting costs is to reuse packaging and to switch to containers that can be readily recycled for new uses again and again.

We’re not talking chump change here. There are big-buck savings when you can attack paper, cardboard and wood pallets.

For example, the commercial office campus, Pleasanton Corporate Commons, reduced its garbage bill by over $100,000 a year by adopting a comprehensive recycling program. And, these programs don’t have to be expensive and complicated. Property Manager Anne Sparks says these savings were generated with “very little effort from our staff.”

EPA’s sponsoring recycling programs through its Use Reusables campaign, which is co-sponsored with the Reusable Packaging Association.

Some recent graduates of EPA’s first round of seminars run by Stop Waste.org to help business reduce packaging include:

• Ghirardelli Chocolate Co.
• the Bay Area News Group’s Alameda County, and
• New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.

EPA’s Use Reusables web site is here.