As a member of the finance team at Harvest, I spend many days locked in my office trying to meet reporting deadlines for our investors. Don’t get me wrong – those deadlines indicate belief in what we do and confidence in our ability to do it, so I’m happy to have them! But sadly they leave me little time to witness the remarkable progress happening daily in our industry. Last week, I came across this simple example that not only reconnected me to the work we are doing at Harvest, but also inspired me to push my own recycling habits even further.
was catching up with an old friend and she was telling me all about a new job she started recently. After she called her new company “green”, I prodded for examples – skeptically, of course, as green washing has become so pervasive that the green label has lost nearly all of its meaning. And then she told me about the tiny trash bins. This is when I got excited. She has a recycling bin of course (a generously oversized one), but the only trash bin she gets is a tiny, soup can-sized bin that fits on her desk. And recycling bins are at every corner and in every room, but trash bins are only in the kitchen. And there’s no trash collection service, so every day she needs to empty her trash bin into the kitchen one. And the most inspiring part of all – not a single person has complained. This story is a simple and powerful example of the primary challenge Harvest and our peers face in the recycling industry: changing behavior. And it also demonstrates what I believe are the best defenses against stubborn old habits: strong leadership, and incentive. The leaders of this company are gutsy! Instead of making a passive statement like “We will work to reduce our waste” – something you can probably find in every company’s annual report and something that has no meaning or measurement – this company made a bold decision, and committed to it without exception. And, they recognized the simple truth that all people are self-serving … as much as we hate to admit this. If you force me to empty my own trash, I will probably think twice before using it. And if you give me a trash bin so tiny that not even Tinkerbell would find it useful, I will REALLY think twice before using it. Something as simple as the size of a trash bin has shifted an entire population’s mindset from “What can I recycle?” to “Why can’t I recycle this?” This is an incredibly powerful shift, and one that needs to take place across cities and states, not just companies. Harvest is working hard to affect change and provide the best environmental and economic solution to cities and towns, but much of our success hinges on decisions made at the local government level. The evidence is clear – we need gutsy leadership!
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