Most businesses want to engage in practices that make proper business sense and protect the environment. You may not be aware that buying products with recycled content offers numerous benefits for your company, community and environment.

Buying recycled means purchasing products made with materials that have been diverted from a landfill or incinerator. Business and industry should be involved with recycling because of the positive economic, environmental and community benefits recycling supports.

Economically, buying recycled-content products makes sense. Not only does reusing material to make new products save money and resources, buying such products supports new jobs and economic development and also creates new markets for recyclable goods. For businesses, buying recycled content products saves money. Using these goods cuts down on disposal costs and can be less expensive than new, virgin products.

Buying recyclables conserves natural resources and the energy used in manufacturing these goods. It reduces the need for waste disposal facilities — landfills and incinerators — while recycling some products cuts down on potential contamination and pollution (e.g., oil and tires).

Third, buying recycled shows leadership in a community and provides an example of how business can use recycled material to achieve both positive economic and environmental outcomes. For recycling to succeed, the marketplace needs to respond by purchasing recycled products when appropriate. Considerably more products today are made from recycled materials — from the carpeting and insulation used in office buildings, to the reams of office paper purchased each day.

Buy-Recycled Program Options
While there are many ways to organize a buy-recycled program, consider these options:

• Focus on product categories that your company purchases in the greatest volume in order to obtain the lowest price.
• Focus on product categories that would be highly visible within your company; for example, interior furnishings such as carpeting and furniture, or “green building materials” such as recycled steel.
• Focus on products made of materials such as recycled-content paper or plastics.
• Focus on “closed-loop” buy-recycled programs; for example, Verizon set as one of its goals to use recycled paper for its phone books, thereby reusing the materials that it recycles.
• Integrate reused, refurbished, remanufactured and recycled-content products into your operations wherever possible.
• Use recycled-content products available through your existing suppliers and service providers, such as office suppliers and janitorial services.
• Support local manufacturing efforts by purchasing at least a portion of your recycled products from local manufacturers.

Buy-Recycled Program Implementation Steps for Business
The following are the most-often considered steps toward businesses successfully implementing a buy-recycled program:

1. Obtain a commitment from management to buy recycled products.
2. Create a buy-recycled team.
3. Learn about recycled products.
4. Evaluate current purchases for opportunities to buy recycled products.
5. Work with vendors.
6. Review purchasing specifications.
7. Review policies and procedures.
8. Set goals.
9. Evaluate progress.
10. Test products.
11. Promote your organization’s buy-recycled program (internally and externally).
12. Monitor your buy-recycled program.

Massachusetts Buys Green, Buys Recycled
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts central purchasing department, the Operational Services Division (OSD) is a good example of purchasing with waste and recycling in mind.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to include substantial human health and environmental considerations into a computer purchase. Computers consume significant amounts of electricity, upward of 40 percent of the electricity needed to power a typical office or school environment, according to a GovPro article last month. They also contain hazardous metals such as mercury, cadmium and lead, which, even now, can make computers dangerous to manufacture, dispose of or recycle.

When designing the request for response (RFR), Massachusetts incorporated a set of purchasing principles developed by a national coalition of more than 50 organizations facilitated by the Center for a New American Dream. The resulting contract, worth almost $70 million a year, included provisions for design for recycling, energy efficiency, recycled content, recycled or reduced packaging, and manufacturer take-back programs.

To address many of the same environmental risks that photocopiers and printers pose as computers do, Massachusetts incorporated human health and environmental considerations into a single large contract covering “everything that prints”: copiers, printers, fax machines, multifunctional products, and all of the supplies and services necessary to operate them.

The 2004 contract requires all medium- and high-speed copiers and printers to include double-sided printing and copying capabilities. It also prohibits equipment contractors from sharing any unsubstantiated information that might discourage the use of recycled-content paper and remanufactured toner and ink-jet cartridges.

And in August 2002, Massachusetts awarded a state contract for carpet and flooring products that required minimum recycled-content standards, and the state directed all suppliers to recycle — not dispose of — used carpet except in cases where such recycling may not be feasible (e.g. asbestos contamination).

Most carpet fibers are petroleum-based synthetic materials and are manufactured in a process that requires high inputs of energy and water that can also produce significant amounts of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contribute to air pollution and smog. Used carpet also represents a sizeable share of items discarded in municipal solid waste with almost 3 million tons of carpet discarded each year. This volume could be significantly decreased if carpets were recycled instead of discarded at the end of their functional life.

Resulting from a pre-bid conference between the purchasing team and industry manufacturers and local suppliers, Massachusetts found that not all manufacturers and installers could provide the recycling services they promised, at least at a comparable cost to disposal. The purchasing team negotiated pricing with three different carpet recyclers and two reuse facilities in the area. They then required the contract vendors to sign-on with one or more of these companies to recycle used carpet.

While FY2005 reports still are being submitted, it is clear that a greater rate of carpet recycling is already underway, reports GovPro. In addition, the contract spurred a local manufacturer to develop a new product that incorporates a significant percentage of used carpet materials.

Massachusetts now buys almost $145 million in safer, more environmentally preferable goods and services. The improved environmental and cost performance of these higher-quality products generates savings of more than $1.7 million annually.

Buying recycled helps “close the recycling loop” by putting the materials we collect through recycling programs back to good use as products in the marketplace. Does your company take part in trying to close the loop?

Resources

Buy Recycled! A Guide For Massachusetts Businesses

Growing a Buy Recycled Purchasing Program, A Manager’s Guide

Buy Recycled Guidebook

Creating a Successful Buy Recycled Program

Massachusetts — Launching the Next Green Purchasing Revolution
by Scot Case and Dmitriy Nikolayev
GovPro, March 1, 2006