In an effort to reduce waste, Santee Electric Cooperative, Inc. (SEC) recently began a recycling program at its Kingstree office.
'While looking into the best way to recycle our office waste,' Stan Williamson, Manager of Business and Economic Development, said, 'We discovered U.S.A. Waste & Recycling out of Darlington.'
Williamson said not only does U.S.A. Waste & Recycling collect the waste from a dumpster at the Kingstree facility without requiring SEC employees to sort their garbage; they charge less to recycle it than SEC had been paying to send the same amount of trash to the landfill.
James Dingle, Purchasing and Warehouse Supervisor for the Co-op said another option that was considered was purchasing a cardboard bailer for the large number of boxes that are delivered to the warehouse. However; the cost of providing an electrical source, purchasing the equipment and using the man hours to break down and bail boxes ruled that option out.
This past September, Williamson simply put green collection containers for glass in each break area for employees to use. Though there are only a few glass items disposed of at the Co-op, these containers help insure no glass gets mixed in with the other waste. Other than glass, everything goes in the same container and is sent to Darlington, where it is sorted and 100% recycled, Williamson explained.
Other than making sure every cardboard box is flattened as not to take up unnecessary space in the dumpster, there really isn't anything our employees have to do differently, Dingle added.
'Our cleaning crew also makes sure no glass is inadvertently placed in trash cans,' Williamson added.
'Well that sounds great,' Christy Dyson, a project engineer with the Co-op, said when she was informed of the program. 'That's a million percent better,' Dyson, who has been interested in starting a recycling program at the Co-op for the past six years, added.
'I am proud of the work our employees have done, finding an alternative to simply putting our trash in the landfill while saving the Co-op money,' SEC, CFO, Tony Fogg said.
'Not only did we cut our costs but we're being green now,' Dingle said.