Green Sign

I have recently been getting annoyed at my office's recycling efforts. We have two cans in our kitchen area: one for trash and the other for recycling. Everyday, I look in the trash can and someone has thrown out a bunch of paper. So I stick my hand in, pull it out and throw it in the recycling bin.

This has been going on for months and finally I'd had enough, so I made a sign. A friendly sign that basically said "The trash you throw away ends up in a landfill. You can lesson our impact on the earth by throwing your paper products in the blue can."

I signed my name so there was no mistake as to who was sending the kind reminder. Our office manager loved it and not only posted it right above the trash can, but made copies and placed them around the kitchen area.

Shortly after posting the notice, I walked by the trash can and low and behold, there was a ton of paper in there. Now I was really iritated. Not only was the paper blatently in the trash, but now I had wasted paper on my signs which were obviously doing no good.

Then my sister texted to tell me that she is on her school's green team!! I was ecstatic! She asked for advice and ideas. I instantly went to work finding the best information for her. Why wasn't my office as interested?

As I pondered that question, our environmental services man came in to collect our trash. He asked me to come into the kitchen area and then praised our office for posting the sign! He asked if he could have copies to distribute to the other offices on our floor! He said that at the end of the day, he himself has to separate the trash and it was just not fair. I was thrilled and instantly made the copies.

Today, I did not stick my hand in the landfill can. I walked by several times with a smile on my face!