How To Show That You’re A Green Company

How To Show Your Customers That You’re A Green Company

The term “green company” is a marketing hot button in today’s business world, but it’s a poorly defined term, so using it effectively takes some planning. You don’t have to be a huge international corporation with a LEED-certified facility to be a green company; in fact, you don’t need any certifications at all. Companies of any size can take steps toward becoming a green company, helping the environment, and building customer confidence and trust. Green programs are an excellent way to engage your customers in discussion on social media, and they can be an effective way for businesses to extend their brand exposure in their local communities.

• Reduce Waste – There are many ways, large and small, that companies can reduce waste. Turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees during winter and up in summer; conserve water with automatic sinks and water-saving toilets; eliminate paper waste with electronic communications in-house, and reduce or eliminate the amount of physical mail your company sends out for marketing. Each of these practices can add up to big savings and provide valid talking points for your company’s website, social media, and marketing material.

• In-House Recycling – It’s surprisingly easy to find recycling opportunities in any business. Using a certified shredding service to dispose of old documents, recycling the plastic cups the coffee machine uses, and encouraging employees to use separated bins to dispose of everything from lunch trash to mail all add up to significantly less waste going into the landfill. Setting up an E-waste recycling station in your office is a double bonus, because it ensures that the company’s E-waste is safely and responsibly disposed of, along with your employee’s personal E-waste.

• Community Recycling Outreach – If your company’s facility lends itself to visitors, you might consider making your E-waste recycling station available to the community, either ongoingly or with periodic events. Storefront businesses can combine recycling events with in-store promotions, such as offering a premium or discount to customers who bring recycling to your location.

• Be Honest – However your company chooses to implement green practices, it’s critical to be honest about your efforts, be consistent, and to offer a sense of transparency as you publicize your efforts. Public backlash against companies who engage in “green-washing” – pretending to be green when they’re really not – can be fierce. Becoming a green company is more than developing a marketing campaign; it’s a process of implementing practices that are genuinely environment-friendly, then letting the world see that your company is doing its part.

Make A Plan For Becoming A Green Company

Combined Resources, Inc. is a leader in eco-conscious waste recycling. We can help you make a plan for becoming a green company by creating a program of customized strategies to reduce your company’s waste and environmental impact. Contact us for a waste audit, and to learn more about becoming a green company with support from Combined Resources, Inc.

The post How To Show That You’re A Green Company appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

Eco-Friendly Recycling Company | Recycling Holiday Items

Holiday Items You Should Be Recycling

We Americans love our holidays, and we tend to go big when it comes to celebrating. Unfortunately, those celebrations can have a significant impact on the environment. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, American household generate about 25 percent more waste than at other times of the year. That’s an extra million tons of trash. Each and every household can help prevent millions of tons of household waste from ending up in landfills. Start by thinking about what you’re buying in the first place: if you purchase recycled-paper greeting cards and gift-wrap, you’re already helping. Buying re-chargeable batteries for all those toys and electronic gifts also helps, because you’ll use those batteries for a year or two before they need to be replaced.

• Shipping Materials – With the rise of online holiday shopping comes a glut of packing and shipping materials. Re-use what you can, then be sure the rest is recycled, not placed in the trash. It can be tempting when the recycle bin is full to use the trash for the overflow, so you can get your cleanup done, but if each household puts some recycling in the trash, it adds up quickly to a significant amount of recyclable material that gets dumped into the landfill. If you’re overloaded with recyclables, hold on to the overflow until your bins are emptied, or consider making a trip to an eco-friendly recycling company to drop it off.

• Christmas Trees – If decorating a cut tree is part of your family’s holiday tradition, make sure that you get all the ornaments and lights off of it, then take the tree to a drop-off site where it will be mulched and re-used in landscaping. If you’re replacing an artificial tree, the old tree is probably recyclable, too, since many of them have frames made of aluminum.

• Light Strings – If you’re discarding old light strings, don’t put them in the trash! They’re made of copper covered in recyclable PVC plastic, and the light sockets may also contain more copper or brass. Recycling copper means less mining for new copper, so taking the small amount of extra effort to recycle holiday light strings adds up to a big help for the environment.

• Paper Goods – Any paper goods that aren’t greasy and don’t have food on them are excellent candidates for recycling: Gift wrap, tissue paper, packing paper, and greeting cards. It’s critical that all the paper turned in for recycling is clean, though, because food and grease can actually soak out of the paper and ruin a whole recycle batch, which results in recyclable materials being thrown into the landfill.

• Batteries & E-Waste – Old batteries, televisions, computers and other electronics should never be thrown in the trash, because they contain toxic substances that can be released into the soil and ground water at the landfill. Collect these items for proper e-waste disposal with an eco-friendly recycling company, and they’ll be broken down to their components and recycled safely.

Work With An Eco-Friendly Recycling Company To Have Greener Holidays

At Combined Resources, Inc., we understand that the holiday season is a busy time for everyone, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. By being mindful of our natural environment and the impact we can have on it, and taking a few extra steps toward preserving its well being, each of us can honor the spirit of the holidays. To learn more about working with an eco-friendly recycling company, and how and what you can recycle, contact us.

The post Eco-Friendly Recycling Company | Recycling Holiday Items appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

Restaurant Recycling & Food Waste Management

Proper Food Waste Recycling In Restaurants

Like other businesses, restaurants produce a lot of waste that is recyclable. Considering how much waste a busy restaurant can produce, recycling is not only the environmentally friendly option; it’s significantly less expensive than paying for multiple waste pickups every week.

Additionally, restaurants tend to produce a lot of food waste that usually ends up in landfills. While food waste can’t technically be “recycled,” a restaurant can implement proper food waste recycling programs to help minimize and manage it.

What Can Restaurants Recycle?

Restaurants receive a lot of their food in large containers and boxes. Restaurants can quickly fill up a dumpster with materials that could otherwise be recycled, such as:

• Commercial size plastic jugs, steel cans and glass containers
• Cardboard meat and produce boxes
• Paper packing material
• Used disposable plastic utensils and cups
• Used paper placemats and menus
• Aluminum soda and beer cans
• Glass beer and wine bottles

In addition to keeping these items out of the waste stream and landfill, recycling is more cost-effective than waste disposal fees, and a restaurant may even be able to make a small profit from recycling valuable materials like aluminum.

While the restaurant does not see the direct impact of recycling long-term, they are ultimately helping to minimize environmental impact, decrease energy consumption, and reduce air and water pollution that would have resulted from manufacturing virgin materials instead of recycling.

Food Waste Recycling

Restaurants have a unique waste stream as a significant amount of what hits the bin is actually food waste. While there is nothing to do with unfinished meals but throw them in the garbage, there are several other ways that restaurants can minimize their food waste:

• Organize Your Pantry, refrigerator and freezer to bring older products to the front and prevent food spoilage
• Modify Portion Sizes or offer smaller portions for a discount if you notice a lot of unfinished meals returning to the kitchen.
• Donate Unused Food. Food banks are always in need of non-perishable food items, but perishable prepared meals can also be donated if they’re distributed promptly. The USDA site has resources for locating a local organization to partner with for these distribution service
• Recycle Used Cooking Oils. Partner with a rendering plant to recycle used cooking oils, greases and fats.
• Composting. Unless you’re a small, family-owned, farm-to-table restaurant, you probably don’t have a need to compost. However, there are almost always local farmers you can donate fruit and vegetable scraps to for composting in their fields. It’s unlikely you’ll get paid for your garbage, but you can feel good knowing you’re doing your part to keep food waste out of landfills.

Combined Resources Inc. Can Help You Create A Restaurant Recycling Program And Manage Food Waste

If you’re interested in implementing a recycling program in your Chicago area restaurant, contact CRI at 630-693-0111 for a free recycling audit. We’ll analyze your waste stream and set up the recycling programs that you would benefit from most. If you’re interested in proper food waste recycling practices, we can help you partner with local organizations that can help you manage and dispose of it to minimize your environmental impact.

The post Restaurant Recycling & Food Waste Management appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

Benefits Of Recycling Aluminum

The Benefits Of Recycling Aluminum And The Scary Things That Happen When You Don’t

Aluminum is one of the easiest and most valuable materials to recycle, and yet nearly $1 billion worth of the metal ends up in US landfills every year. Consumers have the ability to take their aluminum directly to a recycling facility for a worthwhile cash payout; even still, the recycling rate in America is a sad 67%.

While the benefits of recycling aluminum are far-reaching, when it’s not recycled, the negative impact on the environment is far more troubling than the billion in lost profits.

Here’s what happens when you don’t recycle aluminum.

Mining Raw Materials Is Bad For The Environment

Unlike other metals, aluminum is not naturally occurring in the Earth’s crust. Bauxite ore must be mined and then smelted in order to create the material. It’s a time-consuming process that requires an incredible amount of energy and the use of a harmful chemical, caustic soda that leeches into ground water and causes widespread damage to people and the environment.

The physical mining of the ore disrupts the surrounding land, displaces habitats and causes soil erosion, despite efforts to rebuild the land following the completion of a mining project.

Manufacturing Virgin Aluminum Requires 95% More Energy Than Recycling

From mining, to smelting, to manufacturing, creating new aluminum requires 95% more energy than recycling the same amount of aluminum. To put it another way, recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on an iPod or power a television for three hours; manufacturing virgin aluminum uses that much energy many, many, many times over. In fact, the amount of energy used to manufacture new aluminum produces 95% more water and air pollution than the recycling process.

The Benefits Of Recycling Aluminum

If the environmental impact and energy suck of manufacturing new aluminum isn’t enough to make a case for recycling, the benefits alone should make it worth anyone’s worthwhile to start saving cans.

• Recycling Aluminum Is Easy. It’s such a valuable, highly-sought after material that processing facilities make it incredibly simple to recycle. Curbside pickup is available through your local recycling company, although most processing centers accept it directly from consumers in any amount – bring in a bag full or a truckload, and you’ll get paid cash by the pound.

• Recycling Aluminum Is Profitable. While the price per pound varies based on the metals market, aluminum is consistently one of the most valuable materials on the recyclables market.

• Aluminum Can Be Recycled Indefinitely. Unlike other materials that lose their structure the more they’re recycled, aluminum can be recycled indefinitely with no loss of function or durability.

• Recycling Aluminum Is Fast And Energy-Efficient. Recycling aluminum uses just 5% of the energy of manufacturing virgin metal, and a new can of soda can be recycled and back on the shelf in as little as 6 weeks.

Combined Resources Inc. Is Your Source For Aluminum Recycling In Chicago

Whether you’re looking to be more environmentally conscious or turn a profit, CRI can help you develop an aluminum recycling program that works. Contact us for a free audit and see how you can make a positive impact through recycling.

The post Benefits Of Recycling Aluminum appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

How To Reduce And Reuse Paper In The Office Before Recycling

If your company is making efforts to be more environmentally conscious, a commitment to reducing paper usage in the office will have a significant impact. While you may not think your office uses a lot of paper based on your paper expenses, the cost of using paper is actually far more than just the price per ream. Think about the copier/printer maintenance and ink, mailroom handling, postage costs, and employee time spent copying, printing and processing all your paperwork.

Here are several ways you can reduce and reuse paper in the office before it gets to the recycling stage.

Reduce Paper Usage In The Office

Reducing the amount of paper used in the first place is ideal, but the road there can be bumpy. Getting management buy-in and having processes in place that are easy for employees to follow are necessary in order to change your office culture about paper usage.

Some Ways You Can Start Include:

• Printing on both sides (bonus: this will also reduce your postage costs for reports you have to mail!)
• Using digital forms. If you’re worried about security, save them as a PDF that cannot be edited without a password.
• Keeping digital records. Hire a document scanning company to convert all your old paper files to digital records.
• Using email or the company intranet for memos and announcements.
• Thinking before you print or copy! Reduce the size on the copier and adjust the margins in your word processer to fit more on one page, and only print the pages of a document you actually need.

Reuse The Paper In Your Office

For printed documents that don’t end up in a file drawer, consider how you can reuse the paper! Obviously, a commercial recycling company should shred anything with sensitive company or client information, but all other paper can safely be used in a number of ways, including:

• In your fax machine. Just put a slash through the “back” side of the paper that has already been used to avoid confusion.
• To print drafts before printing a final document.
• As scrap paper for memos. Cut each piece of paper into fourths, punch a hole in the top and thread them on a memo spike.
• Shredded and used as packing material.

Recycling Paper In The Office

When you partner with a local recycling company like Combined Resources Inc., you will receive a recycling audit that reveals your office’s waste stream, ways to improve it, and what recycling programs you can benefit from. Almost ALL offices can benefit from a paper recycling program! Once you’ve reduced and reused as much paper as possible, the remainder will be recycled. You will likely have a combination of sensitive documents that require secure, commercial shredding, and regular paper for recycling that includes junk mail and scrap paper. By reducing, reusing and recycling your office’s paper, you will end up with virtually no paper in your garbage bins and will have significantly reduced your company’s carbon footprint.

If you’re interested in reducing paper usage in the office, contact CRI at 855-782-8490 for a free recycling audit!

The post How To Reduce And Reuse Paper In The Office Before Recycling appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

Importance Of Document Shredding | Why Hire A Professional

Why You Should Hire A Professional To Shred Your Documents

Even many of today’s modern offices still produce a lot of paper waste, despite concerted efforts to go paperless. If you’re still relying on desk side personal shredders for disposing of sensitive documents, you could be making a few critical mistakes.

Here’s why you should hire a professional to shred your documents.

Reason #1 – It’s More Secure

Advances in technology make it easier for thieves to reconstruct shredded documents, so even the fancy cross-cut shredders can potentially be hacked by someone with motive and patience. Not only are personal shredders not as effective, but the waste is often left in garbage cans for janitorial staff to pick up at night, further increasing the risk for a security breach.

Professional document shredding services provide locked bins with a slot only big enough for paper to fit through. The bins cannot be tampered with or opened except by the driver who collects the documents under strict security protocols. The documents are then taken to a secure shredding facility, shredded and securely bagged for commercial recycling.

Reason #2 – Commercially Shredded Paper Can Be Recycled

Paper that’s been shredded with a personal shredder cannot be recycled. The reason is that the shredder cuts the paper fibers into very short pieces that can fall through the screens in a recycling center. Additionally, loose shredded paper in a recycle bin is very difficult to sort from other recyclables and creates litter.

Commercially shredded paper, on the other hand, is prepped and shredded specifically for processing at commercial paper recycling centers. Having your documents professionally shredded is not only more secure, it’s better for the environment as it ensures the paper can be efficiently recycled and reused.

Reason #3 – It’s Cost-Effective

When you partner with a professional shredding company, you only pay for the services you use. You set a schedule that works for your office – if your bins aren’t full each week, there’s no need to pay for a pick up. Additionally, if you’re putting less paper and shredded documents in your regular waste bins, you may be able to cut back on janitorial services.

Finally, when you compare the nominal cost of using a third party to a potential security breach that could financially ruin your company, most agree it’s a small price to pay.

Combined Resources Inc. Understands The Importance Of Document Shredding For Businesses

CRI has been serving Chicago area businesses for 30 years with professional recycling services. Our focus is a continual commitment to customer service and satisfaction that you simply cannot get from the big name recycling companies. Our clients know their drivers and trust that their sensitive documentation is being safely destroyed and recycled.

Our paper shredding services start with a free recycling audit to assess your business’s paper waste stream and shredding needs. You only pay for the services you use, and you can adjust your pick up schedule at any time. To learn more or to schedule your free audit, call 855-782-8490.

The post Importance Of Document Shredding | Why Hire A Professional appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..

Start An Electronic Recycling Program At Work | E-Cycle

How To Start An Electronic Recycling Program At Work

Whether you work at an ultra-modern paperless office, or you still have “file rooms” filled with metal filing cabinets, electronic devices are an inescapable part of the 2016 office. The modern office likely has drawers filled with dated mobile devices, broken tablets, low performance laptops and charger cables galore; whereas the traditional office probably has a corner of a storeroom overflowing with broken or dated printers, empty ink cartridges and old electric binding equipment that no longer serves a purpose.

If either of these office scenarios sounds familiar and you cringe every time you see old equipment piling up, it might be time to research the benefits of starting an electronic recycling program at work.

First, Understand Why Electronics Pile Up Around Offices

You may assume management is just having a hard time letting go of “valuable” equipment that the company once paid top dollar for; but more likely, the real reason has to do with the strict local and federal laws around proper disposal of electronics.

Most electronic devices have some type of hazardous material that cannot be safely disposed of in landfills:

• Mercury
• Lead
• Cadmium
• Beryllium
• Hexavalent chromium
• Brominated flame-retardants
• Antimony
• Polyvinyl chloride
• Polychlorinated biphenyls

How Do Offices Get Rid Of Old Electronics?

Companies deal with this obstacle in a variety of ways:

• Participate in buy-back programs at office supply and electronic stores, and get cash to purchase upgraded equipment
• Donate electronics still in working condition to schools, low income families, and nonprofit organizations, and write it off on their taxes
• Partner with a local e-cycle company that offers legally-compliant electronic recycling programs

Starting An Electronic Recycling Program

If your Chicago area company is interested in an e-cycle program, it’s important to partner with a collector or recycler that has been vetted by the Illinois EPA to ensure your devices are properly wiped, recycled for usable materials, then shredded and disposed of according to EPA guidelines.

Many commercial e-cyclers do not accept one-off pieces, but instead schedule large pickups or drop-offs. This means you will still need a place to store used electronics in your office until it is time to recycle them.

You will normally pay a fee for the electronics collector to pick up your old devices. Then, depending on whether the collector partners with a recycler that demanufactures, or shreds the electronics, there may be an opportunity for your company to make a small profit on the materials salvaged from your old devices.

Just as with private recycling companies that collect metal, plastic, glass and paper, each e-cycler will have a different process, and it will be up to your company to choose the benefit of working with one vendor over another.

Call Combined Resources Inc. To Learn More About Electronic Recycling Programs At Work

If you’re interested in starting an electronic recycling program at work, contact CRI at 630-693-0111 for a free recycling audit and see how you can reduce your environmental impact one device at a time.

The post Start An Electronic Recycling Program At Work | E-Cycle appeared first on Combined Resources, INC..