TAMPA, Fla. — Many of us who try to be environmentally friendly ponder this question every day: What belongs in the blue bin and what belongs in the regular trash? Hillsborough County has a program that is helping businesses answer that question.
Walking the halls of the Pet Resource Center, Director Chelsea Waldeck had no idea how much more they could be doing to help the environment, until she met with Hillsborough County Recycling Coordinator Angela Fama.
“We offer a Commercial Recycling Consultation Program that is free and easy to use for businesses to request,” said Fama.
WATCH Hillsborough County offers free recycling consultation program for businesses
“They came in and we actually took them on a full tour of the facility, and we learned a lot that way, because they started pointing out things that could be recycled that we had no idea could be recycled,” said Waldeck.
Over the past few years Angela and her team have conducted more than 100 consultations at businesses, non-profits and government offices across the county.
“This has been very beneficial, I mean even here at the Pet Resource Center, about 50 percent of the items that were previously being put in their trash dumpster are now going to the recycling dumpster instead,” said Fama.
“We had no idea that these large tubs of peanut butter that we go through on a daily basis for our pets were actually recyclable,” said Waldeck. It was one of the many pleasant surprises she came across during the consultation.
Not only is the service completely free, but it could even save businesses some money.
“By increasing your amount of recycling, you can reduce the amount of garbage that you are throwing away, which means you can request a smaller garbage dumpster or request fewer pickups,” said Fama.
The Pet Resource Center was so excited, they nominated various members of their staff to be “Recycling Champions,” making sure everyone in the building knows exactly what garbage belongs in what bin.
“I love it. I love that this is something that we can finally do, and I do it at home, so it’s good to incorporate it now into our daily work lives,” said Recycling Champion JJ Davis.
The county hopes more businesses follow the Pet Resource Center’s lead and sign up for a free Commercial Recycling Consultation.
“We’re a great example of being within the county and not even knowing what resources we had available to us, until it was presented to us and now, we are well on the way to recycling more and hopefully cutting down on the amount of dumpster pickups that we have for trash,” said Waldeck.
For more information on the program, go to Recycliong@hcfl.gov
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