Meeting with Val: November 15, 2007

We had a great meeting today with special guest star Valerie, and who shared with us a lot of useful information:

Recycling

1. There are two dumpsters: one for trash, one for recycling
2. Fasil empties the cardboard boxes into the recycling
3. The janitors throw away the trash
4. Val is fine with adding another container for recycling in the breakroom, as long as there is room.
5. We talked about recycling glass and paper.
6. Darlene takes the plastic bottle recycling home, where her son recycles the bottles.

Janitorial Supplies

1. Gamex, our janitorial company, provides the supplies used in the bathrooms, such as paper towels, toilet paper, soap, etc.
2. We pay for the supplies.
3. The janitor's name is Umberto.

Kitchen Supplies

1. We buy our kitchen supplies (plastic flatware, etc.) from Costco.
2. They deliver it here.
3. We might want to look into bamboo or biodegradable flatware.

General Office Supplies

1. We get our general office supplies (pens, notepads, etc.) from Staples, which delivers them here.
2. We might want to look into more environmentally friendly office supplies, such as refills for pens.

Printer Paper

1. We are limited in the availability of vendors.
2. We should look into the recycled paper content of our colored paper.
3. We should look into the color selection of 100% recycled paper, since we need to continue using such paper.

Lighting

1. Natale brought up new regulations on florescent lights--Mark will look into this
2. Mark suggested having the power company conduct an energy audit if such an audit is free.
3. Our landlord doesn't like paying for extra stuff--we can offer to pay the difference between incadescent and florescent lighting
4. Electricians change the outdoor floodlights periodically and have remarked that we can save on our electricity bill by switching to florescent--this was rejected by the landlord.
5. Mark noted that the incandescent lights in the green room can also be replace by compact florescents.

Reducing Working Days

1. David remarked that all employees can cut down on carbon emissions by working 4 days a week rather than 5. This would be 8.75 hours per day for 4 days.
2. Would we have to pay overtime for hourly employees? Mark thinks so.

Security Gate

1. David would like a security gate to keep out nightly intruders in the parking lot

Book Drive on eBay

1. Mark suggested gathering up all the books from the breakroom and selling them on eBay to fund our activities
2. David suggested asking everyone at the Center to contribute to the book drive