“Green” purchasing is no different from any other form of product evaluation usually done before a purchase is made, be it by governments, businesses or consumers. Environmental purchasing simply considers a greater range of product criteria. Departments may begin an environmental purchasing program by focusing initially on certain types of products or services and expanding to others as they gain experience.
Recycled products may contain either a percentage of materials collected from office/curbside recycling programs (postconsumer), a percentage of materials generated after the manufacture of a product but before it reaches the end-user (pre-consumer) and/or virgin materials. The combination of postconsumer and pre-consumer content provides the total recycled content. For example, recycled content copy paper with 30% postconsumer and 10% pre-consumer content would have 40% total recycled content.
Purchasers are encouraged to evaluate multiple environmental impacts of everyday products through their life cycle and to select products with attributes that minimize environmental and health risks. A product’s environmental attributes can include:
Each school district in Alameda County contracts for their own garbage and recycling collection service and provides their own classroom recycling bin. StopWaste.Org's irecycle@school program provides the educational program support and indoor classroom signage material to support student's understanding and practice of the 4Rs.
Tesla Motors designs and manufactures electric vehicles. At their plant in Fremont they build the Model S, an all electric sedan that seats up to 7 people and was Motor Trend’s 2013 Car of the Year. The car company worked closely with StopWaste’s Use Reusables program to switch to reusable windshield racks, a project that eliminates about 100 tons of cardboard waste a year. Since the new racks hold numerous windshields and can be worked straight from the line, they improve the efficiency of Tesla’s manufacturing process.
In 2006, StopWaste.Org utilized a local consulting firm to analyze a year’s worth of waste management plan data submitted to several Alameda County cities to develop estimates for C&D waste generation based on construction project type.
Carriage House Apartments in Fremont is a gated community with 123 rental units. Starting in February 2012, in an effort to reduce garbage collection fees and be more eco-friendly, management replaced on-site recycling carts with larger bins to increase capacity, and launched an outreach campaign to residents.
At its annual Business Efficiency Awards ceremony, StopWaste honored twelve companies from around Alameda County for their outstanding achievements in waste reduction and efficiency.
