Sustainability Overview

Our earth was endowed with a seemingly endless supply of natural resources that have sustained life on this planet for millions of years.  However, we have learned that these resources are not endless and we all must change our patterns in the consumption of these resources to ensure that we continue to meet our needs, and more importantly, ensure that our future generations are able to meet their needs.  This pattern of conservation has come to be known as sustainability.

CMHA through its Energy Performance Contract took to a huge step toward sustainabilty by reducing its consumption of water, electric, and natural gas.  Now, we are looking a recycling initiative which will further reduce our environmental footprint and move us further towards becoming a truly sustainable organization. 

In 2007, CMHA hauled 9,000 tons or 18,000,000 lbs. of trash to a landfill. Much of that tonnage consisted of materials which could have been recycled.  It is our goal to significantly reduce the amount of material going to the landfill by diverting those materials that can be recycled to facilities which will process them and ship them to various manufacturers for reuse.  It is estimated that it requires 50% less energy to produce products from recycled material than it does to produce those same products from raw materials.

It is CMHA’s objective to initiate recycling at all of our administrative offices, high-rise residential and family unit buildings.  We plan to recycle mixed paper, corrugated cardboard, glass, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and light bulbs.  Additionally, we will ensure that our construction waste is recycled or properly disposed.

Our first step was to start a mixed paper, and corrugated cardboard recycling pilot at six of our administrative offices. We have teamed with a national recycling company called Caraustar, who has provided 96 gallon paper recycling bins, which when filled, are transported to their facility for processing and pickup by various paper manufacturers to be recycled to make products such as paper towels, tissues, greeting cards, and more cardboard boxes to name a few.  This initiative also provides an income stream for CMHA, as Caraustar will pay us for the recycled fiber and CMHA will avoid the landfill tipping fees.

Each pilot site has chosen a person to serve on our Green Team. They have the responsibility to support and communicate the program, and to make sure that their co-workers are “tossing in” the right materials into their desk side collection boxes.  Additionally, we have placed larger 23 gallon "Slim Jim" collection containers at our copier stations, and at strategic locations in our offices for the collection of not only mixed paper but also newspapers and magazines.

As stated above, this is our first step.  We are seeking at ways to bring recycling to our high-rise buildings.  One method to achieve this may be through our trash chute systems.  We are working with a company to evaluate the viability of retrofitting or installing additional chutes to separate recyclable materials from the trash.

In seeking ways to rethink how we do things in a more eco-friendly manner, we are working with State Industrial Products to pilot their new line of non-petroleum based and biodegradable cleaning chemicals called “Ecolution”.  These products are mixed onsite from concentrates thus reducing waste and eliminating costly packaging. We call this new system “Clean with Green”.

We have made a start, but we have a lot of work ahead to attain our goal.  We are committed to that end. Please click here to view a scorecard that charts the progress of our recycling initiative.