Jump-start Your Recycling Program — save money and achieve goals of management efficiency simultaneously!

Join the Greater Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Council and help to ensure that the Greater Philadelphia region continues to move toward a sustainable future in the 21st Century!

Contact us now about our waste audits and recycling support services. By phone:
(215) 247-3090
or by e-mail.
We can help you fill out a copy of the
New Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Plan.

Tools and Documents
Advice and tips
      - advice for residents ( apartment + condominium) >>
      - tips for landlords and managers (apartment, property/facility, office complexes) >>
      - tips for workers (office complexes) >>
Sample documents (contract guidelines, program kick-off memo, survey for apt. recycling)
How to perform a waste audit
Volume to weight conversion table

List of receptacle and other equipment vendors PDF
List of office recycling companies in the region PDF

(back to Resources)



Advice and tips



Yes, all apartment and condominium complexes in the city of Philadelphia are required by law to offer recycling services to tenants and residents. Minimally, programs must offer recovery systems for the following materials:

Newspaper
Glass food and beverage containers
Aluminum beverage containers
Steel food containers.

We strongly recommend adding cardboard and mixed residential paper (junk mail, magazines, cereal boxes, etc.) to your program.

• NO FOOD-CONTAMINATED PAPER, THOUGH! NO WET PAPER (like facial tissue, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.)

Paper represents about 60% of the average residential waste stream.

We also recommend looking into recycling milk jugs and plastic soda bottles (#1 and #2 plastics). There is often a nominal charge associated with plastic recycling, but it is often seriously off-set by the volume reduction it creates for standard trash collection systems.

So recycling is the law. It's also smart because if programs are set up properly it reduces trash costs - both today and for the remaining life of the building. In the year 2010 it is very unlikely that trash disposal is going to be as cheap as it is today. Why wait until there's a crisis to try to solve a problem?

The best apartment recycling programs offer the following material recovery services:

Newspaper
Mixed paper
Glass food and beverage containers
Aluminum beverage containers
Plastic milk and soda bottles (#1 & #2 plastics)
Steel food containers.

• There are important things you need to do now, if you want to see an efficient recycling program at your facility.




APARTMENT LANDLORDS AND PROPERTY MANAGERS
If you own or manage residential rental properties or condominiums in Philadelphia, you are required by law to set up a recycling program for your tenants. Properties with more than six residential units are subject to Philadelphia's Commercial Solid Waste Recycling Regulations. For buildings outside of Philadelphia, recycling is the law throughout the state of Pennsylvania. You should contact your county or municipal recycling office for more details.

Your recycling program should recover essentially the same materials that are recycled through the municipal program for single-family residential homes.

Understand that a good recycling program in your facility should cost no more than your current trash disposal system. A well-designed recycling program reduces the need for trash collections while it adds the new recycling service. In many cases, if you work carefully with your tenants, you may actually see cost reductions for your total solid waste management system.

The best apartment recycling programs offer the following material recovery services:

Newspaper
Mixed paper
Glass food and beverage containers
Aluminum beverage containers
Plastic milk and soda bottles (#1 & #2 plastics)
Steel food containers.

Tenants will welcome the opportunity to recycle, just as many of their neighbors who live in row-, twin- or single-family homes have been doing for years.

• Steps for Successful Recycling in Apartment Buildings and Other Multi-family Complexes.


MULTI-TENANT OFFICE COMPLEXES
In setting up a successful recycling program in your office building, you need to determine what kind of program will work in your facility. You should first analyze your options. For example, would a mixed paper program be preferable to a white paper/newspaper/cardboard program? Knowing your facility will help you to decide which program best suits your needs. If you need help, don't hesitate to us. We offer no cost consultation and site visits for all commercial and institutional property managers in the region. E-mail Dbiddle@gpcrc.com. Make sure to check out all of our other Resources. Take a look at the Jump-Start page as well for more tips and information.

• Steps for Successful Recycling.




Yes, all workplace environments in the City of Philadelphia are required by law to offer recycling services to customers and employees. Businesses and institutions outside of Philadelphia in New Jersey and the rest of Pennsylvania are also required to recycle. Minimally, programs should offer recovery systems for the following materials:

Office paper
Cardboard
Aluminum beverage containers
Organic yard waste and landscaping debris

Paper represents about 70% of the average office waste stream. Our local recycling industry has made significant investments over the last decade in developing a paper processing infrastructure that can accept, sort, bale and consistently send to market mixed office waste paper. Typically, this material is converted into tissue-grade products such as paper towels, toilet paper, and facial tissue. Setting up a comprehensive paper and cardboard recycling program can reduce your property's overall solid waste costs by 25-35 percent or more (see our Success Stories).

If you have food service facilities and/or restaurants in your building, we also recommend talking to your recycler about the recovery of steel food cans and plastic milk jugs and plastic soda bottles (#1 and #2 plastics). There is often a nominal charge associated with plastic recycling, but it is often seriously off-set by the volume reduction it creates for standard trash collection systems.

So, recycling is the law. But it's also smart business because if programs are set up properly they can reduce trash costs - both today and for the remaining life of the building. In the year 2010 it is very unlikely that trash disposal is going to be as cheap as it is today. Why wait until there's a crisis to try to solve a problem?

The best office recycling programs offer the following material recovery services:

Newspaper
Mixed paper
Aluminum beverage containers
Plastic milk and soda bottles (#1 & #2 plastics)
Steel food containers

• There are important things you need to do now, if you want to see an efficient recycling program at your facility.

(back to top)



Sample documents

Guidelines for
Obtaining Competitive Recycling Service Bids (pdf file)

Sample Program
KICK-OFF MEMO ( word file preview) Download this word file onto your desktop. PC users need WinZip to open this file and Mac users need StuffIt Expander, both downloads are free.

Sample Recycling Survey Form for Apartment/Condominium Tenants
and Office Complex Workers(pdf file)

(back to top)



How to perform a waste audit

You can't manage it if you can't measure it...

The objective of surveying your waste is to develop a systematic analysis which will help you make informed decisions. There is no one way to survey your waste. These Tips explain numerous waste analysis techniques and should be used to help you test different methods against each other. You may even come up with your own ideas and choose to use a hybrid of systems. Whatever method you choose, it is important to remember that you are only attempting to estimate waste generation.

To develop a cost effective waste management program, you must analyze your waste stream as a cost center. A knowledge of recycling and other forms of waste reduction can offer you many options for effective containment of waste management costs. To make the best choices for your building, you need to understand the quantities of each basic type of material you generate and how those quantities impact your current waste system.




Before you consider what can be recycled, you need to determine how much total trash you generate by surveying your waste. Track your generation rates on both a weekly and an annual basis. With your results, you can apply a percentage for each recyclable material you want to recover against the total weight of trash. This will give you the annual estimated weight of each recyclable. You need these estimates to negotiate cost effective contracts with waste haulers and recycling companies.

The best place to conduct a waste study is at the loading dock, or wherever your building's waste is consolidated prior to collection. Spend a few minutes a day there over several days to measure your waste (at least a week is recommended). The more time you spend assessing your waste, the more accurate your data will be.

There are a various ways to determine the total amount of waste, depending on the way your trash is collected:

Dumpster Systems
Compactor Systems
Cardboard




The information gathered in the two tables above (or from your hauler if you use a compactor) can then be used to estimate total trash generation for the year by extrapolating for the total number of days trash is brought to the collection point.