AIR DATE JULY 6, 2023
Title: Reducing Commercial Waste
What can businesses do to reduce pollution? A few local companies are sharing their work in supporting greener transitions.
Guests
SunDance, Chairman of the Board & CEO – John Ruggieri
Urban E Recycling, Orlando Manager – French Lanham
Recycling and Printing Services Take an Eco-Friendly Approach
Looking around your home or office, everything you see represents an expenditure. Once things reach the end of their usable lifespan, they often make their way through our local waste management systems, creating another expense.
Recycling and eco-friendly printing services represent an expanding opportunity to help the environment while reducing waste. French Lanham owns Urban E Recycling. He recently spoke to me about how they handle the items that come to them.
“Our number one concern with all of our pickups and everything that we do here is security and data destruction,” Lanham said. “We bring the equipment back, and everything gets logged in through our system. “The rest of the material gets sorted based on the product type, the boards, the cable, the wire, whatever that is, gets sorted out and sent to our downstream.”
For SunDance, the path is a different one. Founder John Ruggieri follows the guidelines of being a Sustainable Green Printer (SGP). “It took us over a year to get the certification,” he told me. “They did things like measure the outflow off the roofs and water we’re putting into the sewer.”
Sustainability Starts with Choices Made at Home
Many items that reach our local landfills could be recycled. Lanham gave me a long list of examples of what they take to divert products from the standard waste stream.
“We take any types of computers, servers, laptops, desktops, printers, copiers. We take cable, flat panel TVs, cell phones, iPads. Anything that electricity runs through, we can recycle.”
Lanham did say they cannot take light bulbs, CRT TVs, and batteries because chargebacks occur, and they want to keep the service free.
Even though it can be costly to embrace an eco-friendly approach, Ruggieri said that taking responsibility in this way is a passion that permeates throughout his entire organization. “Every day, we’re talking about our core values,” he told me. “At the essence of them is living sustainably. How do we live that way as an employee, a company, an organization, or a department?”
“We have our drives where we’re collecting cameras, computers, or things of that nature,” Ruggieri added. “We have these recycling drives regularly. You don’t want to be dumping an old computer in a trash can.”
That’s how the recycling cycle sustains our community. Urban E Recycling, SunDance, and many others work together to support their mutual mission and values, even in different industries.
How Businesses Can Embrace Eco-Friendly Approaches
Ruggieri says the best thing a business can do is be aware of its practices. “Be attuned to your environment and everything around,” he told me. “It’s the right thing to do, and does that pay off in the long run? I think so.”
If you have old electronics that occupy space, contact an organization like Urban E Recycling to help manage these items. “It’s completely 100% no cost,” Lanham said. “If anybody needs to get rid of some old electronics and wants our help, the cost is right. We come pick up.”
You can schedule a pickup from Urban E Recycling by visiting their website at urbanerecycling.com. If you need eco-friendly printing services, SunDance offers global solutions to companies of all sizes throughout Central Florida and the Southeast. Their website is sundanceusa.com.
