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CAO Goes Zero Landfill

A few months ago, just about anyone with a lawn was busy making needless waste. They were raking leaves - potential tree and plant fertilizer - and most likely bagging them in non-recyclable bags for the garbage man.

Landscaping arguments aside, this autumn ritual represents an unsustainable attitude: things become useless at the end of their lifecycles. In reality, the only waste is in not making use of what we normally think of as trash. Tossing something in the garbage bin - instead of recycling, reusing or simply using less of it in the first place - is inefficient. It's a waste of resources, energy, money and landfill space.

The solution is an approach called Zero Landfill. It involves a fundamental rethinking of waste as a potential resource that can be fed back into the system, reducing costs and environmental impacts. This "cradle to cradle" approach looks far down the production stream to consider a product's inefficiencies, life cycle and potential reuses. Its goal is to make landfills and incinerators obsolete.

Zero Landfill is coming to the House's Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO).

Under a recently announced policy, all CAO employees will be enlisted in an effort to eliminate waste by 90 percent or more by the end of 2010. Although specific guidelines are forthcoming, the initiative will involve a thorough overview of business practices, from office recycling to procurement.

The CAO will join a range of major organizations, including Wal-Mart, Nike, Toyota, General Motors and Ford, which have committed to Zero Landfill goals. These and other companies are increasingly recycling or selling scrap materials, adopting reusable parts and incinerating waste to create energy. Subaru, Toyota and Xerox, among other companies, are converting to or building production plants that will produce no landfill waste.

Shifting attitudes at the CAO will be a priority, says Steen Hambric, a senior adviser in the Operations Immediate Office. Hambric and fellow House veteran Cam Arthur, Director of Customer Solutions Delivery, are charged with launching the CAO's Zero Landfill effort. "The easiest thing to shift is our business process," Hambric says. "The hardest thing to change is our behavior."

Arthur and Hambric are still in a learning phase, analyzing waste flows, assembling a list of "easy and achievable" actions and preparing an objectives timeline. The initiative will evolve, adjusting to deal with issues as they arise or as better information is collected.

One thing Arthur and Steen are clear about, however, is that all CAO staff will need to rethink waste. "Before you've even purchased that product, think about what you'll do with it at the end of its useful life," says Arthur.

The Zero Landfill initiative will build on other CAO efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Prime examples include AFL's furniture refurbishment program and HIR's computer server consolidation.