Recycling Workshop for the Workplace Thursday, February 28, 2019

Goodwill Industries of Central Florida – Orlando

The US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Beyond 34 Recycling Imitative, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Recycling Partnership presented a workshop to help companies improve their recycling in the workplace including warehouse operations.

More than 55 attendees learned from top Florida

companies how they incorporate recycling best practices

into their everyday business operations saving them

money as well natural resources and the environment!

Topics included:

• The City of Orlando has a new ordinance on Recycling – are you ready? Joseph England – Solid Waste Management/Green Works Orlando talked about the new

ordinance and how it may affect local businesses. Commercial and multi-unit residential

buildings in Orlando will be required to offer recycling under two related ordinances passed by

the City Council in 2019. Prior to the ordinances’ passage, Orlando did not have a commercial

recycling program, and residential participation for both single-family and multi-family buildings

was voluntary.

The changes will be phased in over four years. Multifamily residential and commercial projects will be required to provide space for recycling containers when they apply for a permit, effective after Oct. 1 of 2019. Large multi-family residential buildings of at least 250 units, and commercial buildings of at least 200,000 square feet, have more time and must offer recycling by April 1, 2020. The goal is to have all commercial buildings have a recycling plan by April 1, 2023. England is available to help any commercial establishment and multi-family residential building

with their recycling plan.

• Warehouse Recycling – Panel Discussion Many of the items you use every day can be

recycled but you need to know which ones have

value and the best way to recycle them.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Recycling Recognition Award winners Justin

Kelley from Rehrig-Pacific and Chris Hathcock

from Rooms-To-Go joined Jennifer Baugher from

Coca-Cola Beverages Florida to discuss how they

started their recycling programs. Keyna Cory,

Executive Director of the Florida Recycling Partnership, served as moderator. The panel

discussed challenges and successes within their recycling programs.

Rooms To Go opened in 1991 and currently has 59 stores in the State of Florida. The Lakeland

Distribution Center is 1.7 million square feet, with an additional 400,000 square feet being

added this year. began its business in 1991. Chris Hathcock from RTG told the group that they

have six recycling operations throughout the company. He said that each operation is different

in size based on the volume of each facility but use the same equipment to process their

recyclables. In 2018 RTG diverted more than 330,000 tons of solid waste from landfills. They

started their program by recycling cardboard and added plastics, EPS (polystyrene) and wood.

Chris suggested that people start with one or two items and then expand.

Rehrig-Pacific began in 1913 building wooden crates. Today, the company manufactures a

variety of products including recyclable plastic crates used for agriculture products, beverages,

dairy, bakery; pails and covers; rollout carts for solid waste collection and recycling containers.

Justin Kelley talked about how many of Rehrig-Pacific products are recyclable, which equals

sustainability, which equals efficiency. All of their products can be recycled into another Rehrig-

Pacific product at the end of its service. Justin suggested that people look at what they are

throwing away and see if there is another use for the material. At their Orlando plant, every

scrap from their manufacturing process is recycled.

Their Zero Waste Production Processes ensures that all scrap resin, packaging and byproduct is reused in the manufacturing process. Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, also known as Coke Florida, is leading by example. Jennifer Baugher reported that their goal is “Zero Waste to Landfill” and uses a third-party, GreenCircle Certified, LLC to verify data. With regards to containers, they produce more than 720 million containers at the Orlando site each year; handle 1.2 billion containers and RECYCLE six million containers every year. Coca-Cola Beverages Florida also recycles 200 tons (seems low) of other materials such as cardboard, wood, and paper. They generate another 60 tons of waste that is recycled and transformed into clean, renewable energy at the Covanta Plant in Okahumpka.

• Are you recycling your e-waste? Technology is constantly changing, and we

are always updating our electronic

equipment. Steve and Tyler Craig from

Technology Conservation Group discussed how to manage IT assets, how to responsibly recycle

electronic scrap and make sure your data is securely handled.

Only 29% of electronics are recycled in the United States. While e-waste only represents 2% of

all solid waste generated in the US, it accounts for 70% of hazardous waste going to landfills.

Why Recycle? Basically, there are three areas to think about … Laws; Regulations and the

Environment. Materials such as batteries, CRT devices, mercury containing devices/lamps,

circuit board and PCBs need to be disposed of properly. If not, your business could receive fines,

bad PR as well as potentially loss of data.

Steve and Tyler stressed that you need to make sure that your materials are being recycled

correctly. Do your due diligence and conduct a site visit; ask for references and do online

searches to make sure the company you are selecting is qualified.

Another tip is to know your equipment. Get organized - create an asset list. If you already have

an asset list, purge dirty data and update it on a regular basis. Know what is nearing its end-of-

life or is ready to be decommissioned.

Determine the sensitivity of your data and decide whether data destruction versus physical

destruction is best for your business. For example, wiping allows for reuse and may be a greater

return on investment. However, physical destruction might be required for highly sensitive

data.

• What is a Waste Audit and do you need one? John Culbertson – MSW Consultants and Carrie Miller – Waste Management shared

information on what is involved in a waste audit.

Carrie discussed how to do an internal site assessment to determine what is

waste and what can be recycled.

Site assessments are beneficial to look at an entire property, building or plant’s

waste collection points and waste flow. It allows for a building to be assessed as a whole and

determine what materials are being generated and where. Also, with a site assessment you can

discover who is responsible for collecting waste, and what is the process.

There are many questions that need to be asked … Does the building have a cohesive collection

program in place across the property? Does one area use green for recyclables and another use

black? Is signage and labeling consistent? Are containers being utilized correctly by staff?

Then you have to conduct an external container assessment. Again information is needed such

as is the janitorial team utilizing the containers? Are the external containers labeled? Does

there appear to be illegal dumping? Should a lock bar be added to prevent contamination

and/or illegal dumping?

After the site assessment, you can determine the placement for waste and recycling collection

bins and make sure to use consistent signage and color scheme.

It is key to educate staff and janitorial teams on expectations of waste collection and the

importance everyone plays. Do follow-up walk-throughs regularly to look at collection points in

and out of the building.

Finally, consider a visual or sort-and-weigh waste audit of the property to establish a benchmark

or measure success of an existing recycling program.

John Culbertson – MSW Consultants

John followed Carrie and discussed how his

firm does a comprehensive waste audit using

the method of sorting and weighing.

They can use the performance measures to

see how much solid waste is disposed, what is

recycled and how

organics are handed.

Performance

measurement will produce a capture rate. A capture rate indicates the

percentage of a specific recyclable that is actually diverted for recycling.

• Florida has a 75% recycling goal by 2020 … how are we doing?

Karen Moore, Florida Department of

Environmental Protection, presented

about the status of recycling in Florida.

The Legislature set a 75% statewide

recycling goal for municipal solid waste by

2020. The legislation set benchmarks. For

example, for 2014/2015, the threshold

recycling rate was 50%. For 2016/2017 it

increased to 60%. For 2018/2019 it is 70%.

The Legislature also set that same goal for all counties over 100,000 in population.

The Legislature has directed all counties to report their recycling progress to DEP annually.

The statewide overall recycling rate, which includes renewable energy* recycling credits,

decreased from 56% (2016) to 52% (2017). The statewide traditional recycling rate, which

excludes renewable energy recycling credits, decreased from 44% (2016) to 42% (2017)

Karen also talked about the problems with contamination in recycling. Most Florida

municipalities have converted to Single Stream Recycling to increase volume. Unfortunately,

the #1 Issue has been contamination. Some municipalities have over 40% contamination or

non-recyclables in the in-bound stream.

Too often, we are getting quantity NOT quality. Therefore, operation costs have increased due

to increased processing. More sorting = wasted energy=higher costs. Florida has ambitious

residents who want to recycle, but not all items are accepted in curbside recycling programs.

Recycling markets have changed dramatically since 2017. China has severely limited the import

of recyclables with bans on mixed plastics and mixed paper and a contamination limit of 0.5%.

The price received for recyclables as commodities is down and many municipalities are paying

more to recycle, although costs are generally still lower than landfilling. Some municipalities are

scaling back their recycling programs in Florida and some recycling contracts are being

renegotiated to address these challenges.

FDEP is working on two education campaigns:

WRAP (Wrap Recycling Action Program) - The Wrap Recycling Action

Program (WRAP) is a national public awareness and outreach initiative

promoting retail takeback of plastic film including wraps, bags, and

flexible packaging.

The “Rethink. Reset. Recycle.” Is an education campaign in partnership

with material recycling facilities across the state to educate residents on

how to reduce contamination in single stream curbside recycling.

FDEP has produced a 75% Recycling Goal Report to the Legislature. The report looks at options

and recommendations provided by recycling industry stakeholders.

Report Conclusions …

➢ Recycling in Florida has changed vastly over the last 10 years. Many of the challenges have

occurred due to changes in collection, shifts in the recycling markets and new and lighter

weight packaging.

➢ Florida’s current recycling rate is 52%; which is a 17% increase since the inception of the

current goal (2012). However, without significant changes to the current approach, Florida’s

recycling rate will likely fall short of the 2020 goal of 75%.

➢ There is a developing consensus that suggests using a weight-based goal may not result in

efficient or effective recycling; rather, incorporation of source reduction and sustainable

materials management concepts into a comprehensive statewide recycling program may be

needed.

Another area being reviewed is Sustainable Materials Management (SMM). SMM is a

systematic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their life cycles.

To attempt to reach the weight-based 75% recycling goal, the State would need to implement

an aggressive multi-strategy approach to capture and recycle a larger portion of the waste

stream which would likely involve state funding and statutory mandates. A shift toward

sustainable materials management would refocus the goal to reduce the life cycle

environmental impacts of materials.

SMM provides a goal that is focused on the environmental attributes that are most important to

protecting Florida’s environment, society and economy.

During lunch, participants broke into groups and discussed the challenges they face with recycling within their company and share ideas on how to improve efforts.

Challenges o Seasonal residents

o Behavior – Getting people to care

o Requirements for enclosures at businesses

o Ordinances

o Where is waste coming from and how do we recover it?

o Timing on mandates

o Getting the passion as to why we should be recycling, i.e. reduce GHG emissions

o Long term behavioral change

Ideas

o School education – Kids are the leaders!

o Fine/penalties program

o Education Center at all MRFs

o Larger focus on waste reduction

o Registration system for companies that recycle

o Farmers Markets – opportunity for recycling & education

o All packaging be recoverable

o Change the focus of how businesses view the waste stream

o See new faces at our meetings

o Work more with Goodwill, i.e. clothing

o Be creative with everyday items that can be reused, i.e. corks, greeting cards

o Ongoing education with workforce

o Explain why we are doing something to get a better result

o “Scan” an item before it can be placed in the cart. The cart lid will not open if the item is

not recyclable

o Lead by example

What Works

o Cameras on trucks

o Research – How do we reach people with recycling messaging?

o Anaerobic digesters

o Orange County “boots on the ground” to inspect carts

A special thank you to Coca-Cola Beverages of Florida for providing refreshments for the event!

The Workshop ended with a drawing where lucky winners received prizes from some of the Florida Recycling Partnership members such as beach chairs, towels and pool toys from Bealls; gift pack from Anheuser-Busch that included a towel, mug, koozie and insulated lunch bag; and Miami Marlins Bobble Head Figurines.

Speakers …

Jennifer Baugher Coca-Cola Beverages Florida Jennifer Baugher is the Sustainability Manager for Coca-

Cola Beverages Florida, based in Tampa. In this role,

Jennifer leads the company's strategy for integrating

sustainability into cross-functional roles, including sales,

training & facilities. She is a graduate of University of

South Florida for her Bachelor's degree in Biomedical

Sciences & Masters in Global Sustainability. In addition to

working for Coke Florida, she currently serves with

multiple non-profit organizations, including as a board

member of Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful. With Coke Florida,

she is excited to focus on recycling & continue her passion as an environmental steward and advocate.

Keyna Cory Florida Recycling Partnership Keyna is the Executive Director for the Florida Recycling Partnership, a coalition of Florida’s top companies and association with the mission to educate policy makers, business leaders and the general public about the benefits of recycling. She is also President of Public Affairs Consultants, one of the oldest lobbying, grassroots and public affairs companies in Tallahassee. Keyna has represented the solid waste and recycling industries before the Florida legislature, state agencies and local governments for over 30 years.

Steve Craig Technology Conservation Group Steve Craig began his career as a paramedic-firefighter and later transitioned to the environmental, health, and safety field where he has remained for 20 years. He has been with Technology Conservation Group for 12 years and is currently their Corporate Compliance Director where he manages their R2/RIOS certifications and downstream vendors.

Steve also serves on the Technical Advisory Committee for the Responsible Recycling (R2) standard where he works to strengthen the standard and enhance best practices for the ITAD and electronics recycling industries.

Tyler Craig Technology Conservation Group Tyler Craig has been with Technology Conservation Group for four years where he has quickly expanded from his start in marketing to his current role as Strategic Development & Improvement Manager. He conducts process audits for all five TCG sites, oversees the planning and execution of long-term improvement projects, and manages a nationwide Employee Buyback Store program for TCG customers. In his personal time, he volunteers as an advisor to the Delta Chi

Fraternity and enjoys cheering on the Florida Gator football team at

every game.

John Culbertson MSW Consultants John Culbertson is a Principal of MSW Consultants, an Orlando-based management consulting firm specializing in recycling, organics, and waste management. He has performed and managed in-depth waste audits for businesses and institutions across the U.S., including schools, universities, restaurants, offices, national parks, theme parks, retail, shipping, and manufacturing facilities.

Joseph England City of Orlando Joe England has been with the City for a little over 2 years. In his current role as Sustainability Project Manager he focuses on solid waste and recycling initiatives. Joe is currently in the process of finishing up a PhD in Environmental Science and Policy.

Chris Hathcock Rooms To Go I started with Rooms To Go on March 21, 2000 as a

Shipping supervisor on night shift.

During my career at Rooms To Go I have been

promoted to multiple levels of management

I have work in the following departments within the

operation: Lift, Receiving and Shipping Department’s

I have been in my current position for 4 years as

Southside Operations Manager overseeing the following departments: Recycle, Returns and Assembly

I enjoy working with the Recycle Department and we are always looking for future opportunities to

continue and extend our recycling program.

Justin Kelley Rehrig-Pacific Justin started with Rehrig in 2010 and has filled many roles to include his current role of Quality/Process Manager. He also works as a plant engineer from time to time creating and developing new ideas or redefining our best practices. Justin recently graduated from Seminole State College with a BA in Engineering Science and Technology with also a CAD certification and a Project management certification.

Carrie Miller Waste Management Carrie joined Waste Management in 2011, as a Total

Recycling Program Manager. In this role, she works

with commercial properties, including food and retail,

manufacturing, office and hospitality venues. Carrie

works with customers to implement or enhance their

sustainability initiatives. She is a LEED Accredited

Professional, with the designation in building

Operations and Maintenance.

Carrie enjoys being involved in several local

organizations including, Keep Orlando Beautiful,

BOMA Orlando and Take Stock in Children. In her

personal time, Carrie enjoys sports, travel and volunteering with Kids Beating Cancer and Special

Olympics.

Karen Moore Florida Department of Environmental Protection Karen Moore is currently the Environmental Administrator for

the Waste Reduction (Recycling) and Waste Registration Section

for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. With

20 years of environmental experience, Karen previously worked

as the recycling coordinator in North Carolina and the

Department’s Recycling Program, as well as, the successful

Florida Green Lodging Program prior to her working as an

engineer for the Petroleum Restoration Program. Karen

continues to work with the Recycling Industry of Florida to reach

the 75% recycling rate for municipal solid waste by 2020.

Comments from attendees …

“What I learned from the event was really just the little things we take for granted in our everyday

practices. Rehrig Pacific does such a great job at engineering products and solutions for our customers

that can and do directly affect the “carbon footprint”. We however sometimes forget that the simplest

things like our plastic wrap or wood waste we generate inside our walls or even our office trash needs to

be evaluated and solutions or training needs to happen to continue to practice what we preach and help

our local and beyond local teams make an impact on our current trash/recycling needs. So hearing the

stories of businesses that are zero landfill labeled companies really hit home and made us re-evaluate

our practices within our plant. So we quickly reached out to Waste Management after the event and re-

evaluated our system and came up with some good solutions for our wood waste and currently working

on our plastic waste as well.” – Justin Kelley, Rehrig Pacific

“It was beneficial for me to join the one-day meeting addressing progress and challenges on recycling in

the workplace faced right next door in Orange and Seminole Counties from both from industry and

government all under one charming roof provided by Goodwill Industries. This was a resourceful

networking opportunity that NASA will benefit from in the future by reaching out to those who have

solutions and similar challenges.” - Shannah Trout, Kennedy Space Center, Brevard County, FL,

Integrated Mission Support Services- NASA Recycling and Sustainable Acquisition Principal Center

Thank You Sponsors

For more information, please contact: Keyna Cory Florida Recycling Partnership 730 East Park Ave Tallahassee, FL 32301 850-728-1054