HOUSTON, TX — Recycling can be an important component of a sustainable city, and Waste Management is leading the charge by implementing single stream recycling downtown. Throughout the Houston headquarters, employees may now put all recycling — paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles and aluminum cans — into a single bin. More than 5,000 trees will be saved in one year from recycling just office paper as all Waste Management employees recycle paper.
“At Waste Management, we ‘Think Green’ in our operations,” said David Steiner, CEO. “We are dedicated to being good stewards of the environment, making our communities safer, cleaner and better places to live and work. I believe we are the first downtown corporation to start single stream recycling, and I am proud that our Houston headquarters is taking such a significant step.”
Waste Management leases office space in First City Tower, and the entire building is now single stream. The company leases other office space in One City Centre; Waste Management’s lease space in that building also is single stream. First City Tower generates roughly 5,000 pounds of paper a week along with countless aluminum cans and plastic bottles.
Single stream recycling is simple - customers mix all their recyclable goods into one bin, rather than sorting them. The materials are sorted at a facility that is specially designed to sort the co-mingled items. The efficiency of the single-stream process can improve local recycling programs by increasing capacity, resulting in an average recovery of up to 30 percent more recyclable materials while maintaining material quality equal to if not better than traditional recycling processes.
With its first single stream recycling plant opening in the late 1990s, Waste Management was the first major solid waste company to focus on single-stream recycling Waste Management and its wholly owned subsidiary WM Recycle America operate 27 single-stream recycling facilities across the country, and an additional six are planned for construction or opening this year.
“These facilities are a part of our plan to make it easier for people to recycle — thereby increasing recycling participation rates and recovery of recyclable materials — and help position Waste Management as the first major solid waste company to focus on single-stream recycling,” said Pat DeRueda, president of WMRA. “Items recycled at the facility create an environmental benefit because recycling materials such as paper, glass and metal helps protect valuable natural resources, save energy, promote clean air and water and conserve landfill space.”