People seeing Green Spots before their eyes on the fifth floor at Hallmark headquarters shouldn’t worry—those spots are a good thing for the environment and those who care about it.
The “Green Spots” are locations for composting food waste and paper products, recycling aluminum cans and plastic bottles, and collecting waste-to-energy items, such as plastic eating utensils, Styrofoam cups and empty plastic salad containers. They’re part of the Hallmark zero-waste-to-landfill initiative led by Heidi Godke, senior risk control administrator, and Rick Blond, continuous improvement strategist. Though the long-term goal is for Hallmark headquarters to send no trash to area landfills, Godke says the immediate strategy is getting employees to rethink how they dispose of trash so that recycling becomes second nature.
In 2009 employees in the Rice Innovation Center at Hallmark headquarters started their own grass-roots initiative to reduce landfill waste, helping Hallmark win the 2010 large business recycling award from the Missouri Recycling Association. The 16 Green Spots on the fifth floor in the main building are part of corporate-sponsored plans that include expanding recycling to the third, eighth and ninth floors in the near future.
Godke says there’s a range of reactions to recycling efforts, from surprise and uncertainty to the passionate support of many others, such as the 10 volunteers who serve as Green Spot champions. These volunteers help monitor the recycling centers and serve as a communication link between Godke and employees. Green Spot champion Vicki Jeffers hopes to attract recyclers by having some fun with her recycling center. Punning on the word “green”, she turned her Green Spot cubicle into a faux golf paradise, complete with artificial turf, plastic trees and golfing posters.
“Most people are thrilled and see recycling as a real benefit for employees,” Godke says. “Others start out going, ‘We’re gonna do what? I have to sort my garbage?’ They’re not used to thinking about where their trash goes.”
As recycling grows, Godke says it will save Hallmark money as well as help the environment. “It gets better the more we do it,” she says. “It’s energizing to see behaviors changing. I just love making believers out of people.”
The headquarters recycling initiative is part of corporate-wide efforts to reduce landfill waste. Examples of other facilities’ achievements so far include:
- The Enfield Distribution Center has been a zero-waste-to-landfill facility for more than a decade.
- The Liberty Distribution Center reduced its use of corrugate materials by 1.5 million pounds in 2009.
- The Lawrence Production Center has diverted 75 percent of its landfill waste to Lafarge since 2006.
- The Leavenworth Production Center has reduced its landfill waste by 62 percent since 2006.
- The Topeka Production Center has reduced solid waste by 79 percent since 2006.
- Crayola, a Hallmark subsidiary, has cut waste going to landfills by 55 percent at its U.S. manufacturing facilities in the last 10 years, and currently recycles 70 percent of all waste, with continuing efforts to recycle more unusable materials or eliminate them from the production stream.