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Many of our buildings have retail areas and food courts at ground level which produce very different waste compositions to those generated from the high-rise office floors. Telstra's head office at 242 Exhibition St, Melbourne is a case in point, with 14 retail tenants beneath a 60,000+m2 office tower. Recognising the opportunity to capture a valuable recycling resource from the ground floor tenancies, we set about providing an easy option for retailers by reducing the volume of general waste collection bins from the pre-existing 4000Litres and replacing them with 2 x 1000L general waste bins and 2 x 1000L recyclable bins. This initiative was coupled with the installation of new colour coded 'commingle' bins throughout the retail food court. Working with our waste contractor, we also introduced an education program for the onsite property supervisors, cleaning staff, and retail tenants which included general information contained in a DVD format and handouts delivered via a question and answer session. Telstra contracts its own waste recycling services, so prior to this initiative Investa was only collecting and reporting on the 'general waste' component. With these initiatives in place the waste diversion percentage has increased from 0% in November 2005 to 23% in June 2006. |
