Summit Recycling Project: Office Recycling

Office Recycling

Setting up a recycling program in your office is usually as easy as strategically placing a recycling bin near the copy machine or near each desk.
Be sure to post a paper-sorting guide or send a memo including Office Pak guidelines.

OFFICE PAK is a "catch-all" category for paper and is accepted at SRP's drop-off centers. Most types of paper typically found in an office can be placed in OFFICE PAK (all white and light colored paper, envelopes, sticky notes, fax paper, notebook paper, and even file folders).

Just beware of BRIGHT and NEON paper, including orange/brown manilla envelopes, as these are NOT RECYCLABLE and are the main contaminants in Office Pak.

In Frisco
MAGAZINES and NEWSPAPERS must be kept separately and recycled in their own bins at the drop-off centers.
Having one or two people in charge of monitoring the paper bins is a good way to keep contamination to a minimum.

In Breckenridge
OFFICE PAK, MAGAZINES & NEWSPAPERS can be mixed in the mixed paper bin.

Please call SRP's Community Education Coordinator at 668-5703 for help in setting up an office recycling program or to further your efforts to be a steward of the earth.

It feels good to place paper in a recycling bin instead of the trash, knowing that for every ton of paper recycled YOU are directly contributing to keeping our forests alive by saving at least seventeen forty-foot Douglas Fir trees from the paper mill. Thanks for recycling!

Why isn't all paper recyclable?
A Guide to Office Pak Contaminants

NO! DEEP TONE OR FLUORESCENT PAPERS
Deep tone papers are intense colors such as dark red, dark blue, dark green, black and fluorescent colors such as pink, orange or lime.

NO! "KRAFT" ENVELOPES
Typically referred to as manila envelopes, Kraft envelopes are brown-colored envelopes in any size.
When paper is recycled, a non-chlorine color stripping process is used to brighten the paper. Combining deep tone papers, like fluorescent and Kraft envelopes, in this process would significantly depress the final product brightness. Deep dyed papers would require too much bleach to regain a neutral color recycled stock, and therefore defeat a major benefit of recycling using less energy and less resources.

NO! GROUNDWOOD PAPERS
Typically, notebook paper with recycled content and construction paper are considered groundwood paper. Unfortunately, the fibers in these papers are too thin to recycle again and again - and are therefore unacceptable to our current market standards.
Groundwood computer paper (11x14' computer paper usually with recycled content) is the only type of groundwood paper acceptable at the drop-off centers. A specific bin is designated just for groundwood computer paper.

NO! PAPER REAM WRAPPERS
Wet-strength paper, including paper ream wrappers and tyvek envelopes are laminated papers containing polyfilm and insoluble glues. This lamination protects copy paper and letterhead from getting wet or damaged. These are considered contaminants to office pak because these materials can not be fully (or sometimes even partially) "broke down" in pulping. They wreak havoc during the paper making process, as they often cause sheet breaks, holes and tears, causing several hours of downtime while they are "shoveled" out of the pulper.

We Need Your Help!
The misplacement of unacceptable papers in office pak or other paper categories causes the bin to be downgraded to "mixed paper" which doesn't pay any revenue.
By comparing the labor and transportation costs to the return received on the paper recycled as SRP, paper recycling barely breaks even - when no contaminants are found in the bins.
We currently use the high paying papers, like office pak and white ledger, to subsidize the collection and transport of nonpaying papers like magazines and phone books. Therefore, for each office pak bin that is downgraded, SRP loses at least $50, in addition to the hauling cost, making it very costly to transport papers that don't pay a return.
Our staff tries to pull these fluorescent papers, dark envelopes, and ream wrappers out of the containers before we ship them to market, but it is also helpful if you can assist on your end by removing them from your recycling bin to avoid any chance of downgrading.

Carefully following the guidelines on the Paper Sorting Key is greatly appreciated - and will assure your recyclable paper meets market standards. Thanks for your support.

Contact SRP at (970) 668-5703 or recycle@colorado.net