11 May 2009 | Posted inBlog News & Updates, Featured, In the Studio
HOK Waste Audit mess
As part of HOK’s annual Go Barefoot Day event to celebrate Earth Day and move our firm towards carbon neutral operations, all HOK offices were asked to complete a waste audit. Trash, recylables and compost were all weighed separately during a secret audit performed before Go Barefoot Day. The same calculations were then completed on a day when all employees were informed to make conscious decisions about their personal trach and recycling. The results were very telling and HOK Chicago showed a significant reduction in the amount of overall waste that we produced in one day by making conscious decisions about our purchases throughout the day. The numbers were great and can be found below, but the real fun came when we went (1) step further and found out which items in the trash were NOT being recycled properly. This required some digging (literally) and our Sustainable Design Group nominated me to dig while they sat back, laughed and had a few beers. Enjoy:
24% less trash produced (by weight); 22% less paper recycled (by weight); 50% more recycling (by weight); 32% more cardboard recycled (by weight)
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Colin, I’m assuming that brew your holding was a fresh tasty beverage NOT from the trash/recycling!?
not from the trash can, but we did at it to the mix at the end. On a side note, people throw out a lot of whole food. Makes me want to be a freegan.
i’m dying to know what good stuff you found in the trash (besides food).
a whole orange, a $15 chocolate easter egg, a bag full of candy, lots of paper mail from folks that we suspected don’t recycle (now we have proof) and 1/2 a sandwich.
p.s. we didn’t bother with the restroom waste
True, but all of that Easter candy was wasting away on the table in the HOKafe’. I’m sure once folks realized nobody was going to eat it, they simply threw it away. Still… Props for digging through the trash man. That was hilarious.
yeah, but we’re talking a gourmet, still-wrapped in cellophane filled-with-something-yummy easter egg the size of your fist that was never put in the cafe for grabs. it just went straight into the garbage. and to think that there are people right outside on Van Buren and in the subway asking for food everyday. and someone paid $15 for it. sad.