National Center Recycling Program From: "Tamela Thorpe" Message-Id: <960718130041.ZM18575@tthorpe> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 13:00:40 -0500 X-Mailer: Z-Mail 4.0.1 (4.0.1 Apr 9 1996) To: "USGS Employees at Headquarters" Subject: National Center Recycling Program Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit During the past 2 years, the National Center's recycling program has been a tremendous success. As a result of your efforts, we have been able to remove a total of 1,135 tons of recyclable materials from the waste stream. Recyclable materials include Grades 1, 2, and 3 paper, cartographic maps, aluminum press plates, toner cartridges, cafeteria grease, aluminum/steel cans, glass bottles, telephone books, styrofoam, cardboard, yard waste, and waste oil. Other miscellaneous items are recycled on a smaller scale. As successful as this program has been, we have not been able to reach our potential for Grade 1 recycled paper, which provides the highest return to the Government. Specifically, Grade 1 paper is being downgraded to a lesser grade because it is contaminated with Grade 2 paper and other non-recyclables. The most common contaminants are Incentive 100 paper and post-it notes. Incentive 100 paper, the grayish tone copier paper the Service Center offers must be recycled as Grade 2 paper. Post-it notes are not a recyclable item, but are frequently attached to papers placed in the Grade 1 containers. Post-it notes should be removed and placed in the trash and not included as a recyclable. The three grades of recyclable paper are: Grade 1: Computer printouts, white ledger, white copier, bond, hard white shavings, and manila tabulating cards, or any combination thereof. Grade 2: Various grades of paper, including miscellaneous ledger, file stock, Incentive 100 paper, wet strength, corrugated containers, heavy books, magazines, slick-coated paper, colored paper, no-carbon required (NCR) paper, groundwood computer printout, and contaminated Grade 1 paper, or any combination thereof. Grade 3: Newspapers Additional information regarding the National Center's Recycling Program can be found on the Office of Program Support Customer Service Home Page (http://www.usgs.gov:8888/ops/facilities/recycle.html). Thank you for your continued support of the National Center's Recycling Program. If you have any questions, please call Debbie Schaefer on extension 7513. -- Tamela Thorpe