The Absurd and The Ideal

A couple weeks ago I finally finished setting up a contract with a "document management" company to begin recycling in our office. It was a joyous day. Not only did it mean the program would be returning and I wouldn't be the one carrying the load, but another office in our building was also involved, and after more than a year of hassling them, so was building management.

At first glance it didn't seem like such a complicated matter, and essentially it isn't. Except of course nothing has gone as planned, and so far my office is the only one to have actually gotten any bins. First of all, this program differs from the one the city runs. For curbside pickup and at the drop off centers around town containers can be commingled, but paper products need to be separated. Well, the program through this third party is exactly the opposite. Office paper, newspaper, junk mail, magazines can all be thrown in together, but containers have to be separated, excluding glass, which they don't accept.

The one thing I've learned from two years in the corporate world of dealing with vendors who want a piece of our action, is that most (not all) of the time the sales people they send in don't actually know anything about what they're selling. Once you say you're in, they turn you over to someone else. Not that this is the case here, but simply put, I've been given no explanation to the divergent processes. Not to mention, I've been told by a very reliable source from a company across town that they use the same third party, but that they commingle their containers. The only trouble is I've sworn to confidentiality.

The cost is anything but exuberant, less than $100 a month for a pick up every two weeks. Still, the coordinator I was working with at the other office, for one reason or another, has yet to get approval for the program. As for the building, it was bought last year from a company based in Dallas, TX. And I was told two days ago that it is up for sale again and that the current owners have told management to put all contract negotiations on hold, so no recycling for the lobby, etc. The upside, however, is that today they sent out an email to the building tenets explaining some of the details for the program, and stating, as it has been mentioned in two of the local papers, that city government, after having made recycling a mandate ten years ago, is finally going to start enforcing the law with fines to businesses who fail to comply.

Will it be the same old song and dance?