Power people are thinking green, and that puts them right in line with companies like AT&T, Chevron, Safeway, and, yes, Caterpillar. What these companies have in common is a commitment to recycling waste material in order to "reduce our environmental impact and decrease the waste stream," says Lisa Kullen, Service Writer for Peterson Truck Shop. Lisa and Peterson employees Cindy Figueiredo, Annie Earle, Tom Bagwell, and Mike Gillen came together as a team to implement a recycling program that has brought them praise from customers and co-workers alike.

Our service shops have always followed excellent waste management practices with the appropriate recycling of oil and scrap metal, but the office environment had no organized recycling programs for the typical paper waste of a busy administration. In order to address the issue, the Environmental Safety Team was formed to come up with solutions for Power that were not only successful at reducing waste but also cost-effective.

The project started off small: a few blue garbage cans were purchased for employees to collect their recyclable waste like paper and envelopes. When it was discovered that these recyclables were being sent to the same dumpster as the trash, stronger measures were in order. Soon, one wheel-out cart was purchased. But the staff at PPSi was doing a great job with their recycling and a larger container was necessary. At every step of the game, recycling efforts exceeded the group's projection, and larger and larger disposal containers were needed. They've recently worked their way up to a mid-sized dumpster, as the company's recycling output is now more than twice the size of the shrinking trash output.

The recycling program positively impacts Peterson's customer relationships by helping us to meet certain expectations and requirements which can arise during the bidding process. The vendor bids that Peterson submits to potential customers may need to show that we follow various disposal criteria in order to be considered for any contracts. These recycling efforts help our organization meet those goals.

And how about the cost? Another happy outcome. After the initial capital expense of starting the program, Power is actually saving money thanks to their green choices. For example, the "high post-consumer content" recycled paper now being used is cheaper than the new paper previously purchased. Alameda County Industries' recycling services costs Power less per ton than their garbage service, and ACI even hosted a luncheon complete with guest speaker onsite at Power to tell the company all about the new service.

All this effort will soon be coming to the attention of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, as Power applies for a WRAP award. WRAP provides an opportunity for California businesses to gain public recognition for their outstanding waste reduction efforts. Each business is evaluated individually, based upon its own accomplishments. Award winners receive authorization to use the WRAP winner logo with their products, advertising, and business websites to publicize waste reduction efforts. Last year's winners included some of Peterson's largest customers such as Genetech, Hewlett-Packard, and UPS. At the time of this writing, Power has met the requirements to receive a WRAP award for 2007.

In all, says Lisa, it's been a very positive experience. "Everyone has good feelings about the program, and putting it together was a great team exercise. Even though we did some in-house awareness advertising at the beginning, it was never a hard sell. Support for the program, from employees right up through management, just fell right into place."