Wrapping Up “Trash Your Can”

This past week NOLS HQ and NOLS Rocky Mountain participated in a week long “Trash Your Can” waste management challenge. During the week of April 20-24, NOLS staff members voluntarily gave up their personal trash cans in exchange for a comparably sized recycle bin supplemented by one small trashcan for the whole department. Our goal was to reduce the amount of trash we create by facilitating an office climate where recycling is more convenient than “trashing”.

From the beginning, many staff members were excited for the challenge. Jeanne O’Brien thought we should extend the program from one week to two. Lou Gordon told me she didn’t want her trash can back saying, “When the trash can is under my desk it is too easy just to throw things away, working without a trash can really helps me to recycle.” After the “Trash Your Can” campaign we had 10 HQ employees permanently give up their trashcans. We plan to label these vacant cans and re-distribute the containers to NOLS staff as more durable and waterproof recycling bins. Using these new recycling containers gives people the opportunity to store their leakier recycling items in a secure place while they wait to sort their items.

As a result of the Trash Your Can campaign we doubled the amount of food waste NOLS Headquarters composts in a week, increasing from 1 1/2 five-gallon buckets to over 3. By moving our trashcans out of reach we eliminated enough waste to reduce our trash by 4 industrial sized trash bags in one week (down from 8 bags/week). The cleaning staff also saw a huge difference in the kind of waste we were producing. Rhonda, who manages the cleaning for HQ said, “Normally we see all kinds of paper and food waste in the trash cans, this week we hardly saw any. People did a great job.”

At NOLS Rocky Mountain 4 people decided they no longer need their trashcan. Greg Fleming reflected on his Rocky Mountain experience stating, “Trash Your Can” experience stating, “Wow! What a positive, eye opening event… a great concept that worked very well. It was amazing to see that the reduced number of ‘community’ (departmental) trashcans did not fill up. Thanks you organizers & the NOLS Lander community for making this work. My can has been trashed, FOREVER!”

Thanks to everyone who participated for their great work! Please contact the NOLS sustainability department at [email protected] if you have any further questions or suggestions about recycling.