Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment North West District Office Green Team

Our green team is made up of all employees here in the Northwest District Office. There are two state agencies here: the KS. Dept. of Health & Environment and the Dept. on Aging. We began our recycling program in the Fall of 1997 when the City of Hays supplied free curb-side pick up for recylables in our area of town. However, our office location does not qualify for the free curb-side pick up because we do not use the City of Hays to pick up our trash. We use a private trash hauler. Therefore we must make a concerted effort on our part, to haul our recylables down the street to a residential recycling pick up point. There is one person here in our office who has faithfully transported our recyclables for the past ten years. His name is Bill Heimann, our Envrionmental Geologist. Rain, sleet, or snow, on the one day of the week the City of Hays picks up recyclables, Bill pushes the 55-gallon recycle bin on wheels down the street and also carries the bagged shredded paper on his back. Each office and every room is provided with a blue plastic recycle wase basket (blue bin) for paper.  At the end of the week, we dump our blue bins into a 55-gallon container located in our copy room or Bill Heimann rolls the 55-gallon recycle bin down the hallways and collects the paper from each office. Recycling in our office has become part of the norm for everyone here. We are all environmentally concious individuals in our office and believe in teamwork. show less