Spring 2010

WasteBuster Business

Printed on recycled paper

Law firm can brag about

its green initiatives

Step off the elevator into the quiet, elegant reception area of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, and you will find a business where the culture is to reduce waste and recycle. With offices in Lexington, Louisville, Memphis, and Nashville, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, which occupies 3-plus floors of the Lexington Financial Center between Main and Vine streets, is a firm dating back to the 1800s. The general-law practice here employs around 100 people, including attorneys and staff. Jane Spiegel, Client Services Manager for the office, says they were already recycling before she learned of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s WasteBuster program and joined six months ago. When she saw businesses being recognized in Business Lexington as WasteBusters, she said, “We already do that, so we may as well brag about it.” For a recycling program to work in any office building, especially one the size of the 30-story Financial Center, the building's management must be involved, Spiegel says. Nick Schwenderman, a Senior Vice President with the Webb Companies who own the building, says they made a

Enclosed in the break room are large containers for recyclable materials, plus a box to collect aluminum tabs for the Ronald McDonald House. Client Services Manager Jane Spiegel fills her reusable water bottle from the water-filter machine the firm provides to reduce the number of throwaway plastic bottles.

Attorney Leila O'Carra fills her individual recycling bin, then empties it into the larger bin in the copy room.

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Tenants that recycle impact building owner's bottom line

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capital purchase of 30-gallon recycling containers and offered them to all tenants who wanted to recycle. It is up to the businesses to put the recyclables in those containers. “In an ideal world everyone would make that effort,” Schwenderman says. The cleaning service the building management contracts with empties the 30-gallon cans into the 95-gallon Rosie carts and gets them to the curb for collection by the city. At Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, small bins were purchased for individual offices, and then it is up to each employee to transfer the contents to the larger bins, which are located in the copy areas. In the break room there is a large container for mixed recyclable materials, such as cardboard pizza boxes, glass and plastic. A separate large bin is for aluminum cans because those are sold with

the proceeds used for staff events, called “Quality of Work Life” which ranges from funding a cookbook with employees' recipes to a pancake breakfast for employees. The money is also used to purchase more small recycling bins. Before the aluminum cans go into the recycling bin, employees remove the tabs and deposit them in a box. The tabs are donated to the Ronald McDonald House, which provides temporary lodging for families whose children are receiving medical care. “Wyatt Goes Green” was the message the human resources director sent out to employees last year, promoting recycling and saving energy, Spiegel says. They have tried to reduce the number of plastic water bottles used by purchasing water-filter machines for break rooms. They are working toward buying copy paper and legal pads with recycled paper content. “Green” cleaning products are used in-house. Employees are also encouraged to turn their computers and lights off when leaving. Printer cartridges are recycled and the more

energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs replace any bulbs that go out. Spiegel says she doesn’t know how much recycling has reduced their waste stream, but Schwenderman does, since it is part of the building management’s job to know if anything makes an economic impact. He says two things have reduced waste costs in at The Financial Center: having a pressure switch installed that is activated when the trash compactor is full, reducing the number of times it must be serviced, and tenants recycling. Since there is very little food waste that comes from an office building, Schwenderman says if there was an intermediary place between the building and the landfill where material from the compactor could be sorted, he thinks 90 percent of it would be recyclable. Doing the right thing for the environment is one thing, Schwenderman says, but as a business you also have to look at any impact on the bottom line. Having the compactor serviced only when it’s full and the recycling program have made a phenomenal difference, Schwenderman says.

Fifth Third Bank, whose Central Kentucky headquarters occupies five floors of The Financial Center between Main and Vine streets, started looking for ways to reduce waste costs in February 2008. Jody Shoup, Relationship Manager, International Corporate Lending, says Toyota Manufacturing Motor Kentucky, known for its green initiatives, was a great influence and source of information before they joined the WasteBuster program. Fifth Third took its own initiative in getting the Webb Companies, which own the building, to buy into and support a recycling program, Shoup says. Now, Fifth Third’s 13 branches in Fayette County also have a recycling program and employees in the branches take responsibility for getting recycling bins out for collection. Shoup says some financial center managers and employees in counties without recycling take recyclables home to Fayette County.

With a large number of employees to train on the benefits of recycling, Bluegrass PRIDE gave a presentation to the retail sales staff offering information and guidance on recycling. PRIDE also conducted waste audits at three of Fifth Third’s Fayette County branches with results showing: 55% in the

trash was recyclables at one branch, 45% at another, and 81% at the third branch. Shoup said the audits found items like newspaper, magazines, coin boxes, envelopes and plastic bottles were going into the trash; plus they identified places where recycling bins were needed, like the tellers’ area.

“Change is always a difficult process,” Shoup says, “but senior management at Bancorp (the company's Cincinnati headquarters) is now working to push green practices across all bank affiliates.”

In addition to the recyclables collected, Fifth Third has a coffee-mug adoption program to replace Styrofoam and paper coffee cups. Highbridge water coolers were put in branches to reduce the use of plastic water bottles and there was a campaign that offered reusable cloth bags for $1 with the proceeds going to fund other green activities. Shoup says they try to give back to the community as well. Last year Fifth Third did a cleanup in Cardinal Valley Park and this year they are partnering with Lexmark and the University of Kentucky to clean up Cane Run Creek.

Bank initiated recycling in main and branch offices

Recycling helped reduce how often the compactor at The Lexington Financial Center has to be serviced.

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Tucked away off South Broadway amid a variety of restaurants including Sonic and Jalapeños is a small, thriving business that could be a role model for dedication to the environment. The Thai Orchid Café, which has been in business three years and an official WasteBuster business for two, is as close to the city’s “Zero Waste” goal as any business or residence could be.

Serving the cuisine of Thailand for lunch and dinner 6 days a week, at the end of the day, only a five-gallon bucket of table scraps is their garbage. “So much waste goes out of businesses,” says Toa Green, who manages the restaurant owned by her parents. “If we can recycle so much in our small space, there’s no excuse for larger companies not implementing a recycling program. We need to get more people involved.”

Within the tight quarters of the cooking and storage area is one fairly large bin where paper, boxboard, e.g. egg cartons, steel food cans and plastics are collected. And, scattered around the areas are five-

gallon buckets that soy sauce comes in where aluminum, glass, and organic food waste are kept until transferred to the restaurant’s three Rosies or taken to Green’s house for composting.

Prior to joining the WasteBuster program, Green took the recyclables home. In this cluster of various types of businesses, this restaurant is only one of two WasteBuster businesses.

Green says training their seven employees to recycle was not a problem. “Recycling is just second nature here,” she says. “We train our employees to ask first if they don’t know; in other words they have to get permission to put something in the garbage.”

Organic waste, which includes fruit and vegetable waste, plus egg shells, coffee grounds and tea bags, is a huge part of any restaurant’s waste. At the Thai Orchid Café the organic waste goes first to the compost pile at Green’s house, which she calls a “worm hotel,” then is put on her garden to naturally nourish

the vegetables, which then come back to be served at the restaurant. “It’s a wonderful cycle of life that we enjoy,” Green says.

Suda Veerasethakul, the restaurant owner and Green’s mother, is a former employee of the state’s Department of Waste Management, and says she knows about landfills. “It takes extra time and effort to have these containers around our kitchen, but that does not stop us from running our business efficiently, and our customers appreciate that we recycle,” Veerasethakul says.

By recycling and composting, Green says they have cut their trash bill by 30 percent. They have the smallest dumpster they can rent and it is dumped only every other week and is far from full then. Green says a dumpster is required by their space-rental contract or they wouldn’t have it. But, Veerasethakul says they don’t re-use and recycle for monetary gains, “it’s the right thing to do for the Earth; it’s hard to quantify.”

Thai café is perfect example for how to achieve zero waste

Restaurant owner Suda Veerasethakul, top, and her daughter, Toa Green, manage to recycle most of the waste from their business, including organic waste, which is composted in Green's garden.

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2010 HOLIDAY LFUCG COLLECTION SCHEDULE On Holidays: No garbage or recycling collection

Monday, May 31 Memorial Day Wednesday, June 2

Monday, July 5 Independence Day observed Wednesday, July 7

Monday, September 6 Labor Day Wednesday, September 8

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Department of Environmental Quality DIVISION OF WASTE MANAGEMENT 675 Byrd-Thurman Drive Lexington, KY 40510

PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID Lexington, KY PERMIT # 1

Printed on recycled paper

Doing the right thing can save money

Most WasteBuster businesses say they recycle because: “It’s the right thing to do.” Some, however, see a cost-savings by reducing the service days or size of their waste containers.

Here are some facts from various environmental sources and what WasteBuster businesses are doing:

♦ Four million tons of office paper are discarded every year. WasteBuster businesses invest in recycling bins for individual offices and common areas to make it easy for employees to recycle office paper. Many businesses promote printing on both sides of the paper.

♦ Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour and most of them are thrown away! Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, purchased water-filter machines for its break rooms to offer employees an alternative to plastic water bottles.

♦ Each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic waste yearly. At the Thai Orchid Café organic waste is composted and ends up being a natural fertilizer for the vegetables served there.

♦ In 1996, aluminum manufacturers saved enough energy by recycling aluminum instead of creating it from imported bauxite ore to power a city the size of Pittsburg for six years. Still, millions of aluminum cans end up in landfills. WasteBuster businesses put the cans in the Rosies or sell them and use the money for employee activities.

Bluegrass PRIDE, 266-1572, provides educational and promotional materials, plus training for staff on waste reduction and what is recyclable. They also can audit a business’s waste stream to see if there are items being thrown away that are recyclable. Recycling is a choice that helps the environment and often the business’s bottom line.

Glass separation ends June 1

Recycling gets easier beginning Tuesday, June 1, when glass can go

into your recycling bins with the other recyclable materials. We have been able to upgrade the LFUCG recycling center with equipment that can separate glass, so our customers no longer have to.

If you have a Rosie cart marked "Glass Only" it can be used for all material. Call Bluegrass PRIDE, 266-1572, if you want a new sticker.