There are literally, hundreds of recycled office products that are available for your consideration. Many of these items are featured in Olympic's full line catalog.

Office Paper Recycling

Paper is one of the major recycling goals that your office should begin with. Offices create large amounts of waste paper. We urge you to participate in a paper recycling program. If you are in a large office building contact your property managers or facility managers to find out how you can join or start a program. Your recycling partners may have a program that asks you to separate white paper from colored paper and cardboard. White paper consists of copy paper, computer paper, plain paper fax paper, white envelopes, letter head and white backed brochures. Many recycling companies are starting to accept colored paper mixed in with the white, making the conscious effort to recycle even easier. Generally speaking recycling firms provide a separate container for cardboard. Never mix food or drink contaminated products with your recycling.

Bottles and Cans

Most recycling programs have separate containers for glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Most recycling companies prefer that paper labels be removed from the bottle or can, however this is generally not practiced. Burnt out light bulbs, either incandescent or fluorescent are not to be deposited in the glass container. Dispose of these items in the regular trash.

Printer Cartridges

Many of the laser toner, bubble-jet, and ink-jet cartridges are recyclable. Olympic will pick-up your used cartridges when we make a delivery to your firm. Please consider purchasing what the industry calls remanufactured - or recycled cartridges. The technology for re-manufacturing these cartridges has come a long way can almost equal the original in quality while costing substantially less. Olympic provides a postage paid mailer to each customer who purchases an Inkjet cartridge, simply put the empty cartridge in the mailer and send it off. The manufacturer will certify if the cartridge is able to meet OEM specifications, and if it passes the test, will be cleaned, tested and refilled.

Diskettes

Often diskettes are overlooked in recycling programs. A simple way to recycle is to re-format the used diskette and it is ready to go. There are degausser machines (basically a high powered magnet that removes anything on the diskette) available. These machines are typically used by very high volume diskette users. Olympic sells GreenDisk brand recycled diskettes in a 3.5 DSHD-IBM formatted style.

Oh, Really??
Questions and Answers

Q: Many products today are described by their post-consumer content. What does this mean?

A: Post-Consumer content is made from the materials YOU have recycled - it does not include the manufacturer's waste. Look for the highest percentage of post-consumer recycled content you can find. These four types of packaging can always be counted on to have a high percentage of post-consumer recycled content, even though many such packages are not yet labeled.

Aluminum Beverage Cans - About 50% of the aluminum in beverage cans come from used cans that were recycled and melted to make new cans.

Glass Bottles and Jars - Nearly 25% of the glass in bottles and jars has been used before, recycled, and remanufactured.

Tin (Steel) Cans - So-called tin cans are actually made of steel, usually with a thin coating of tin. About 25% of the content is recycled steel, half of that being post-consumer.

Molded Pulp Containers - Gray or brown cardboard egg cartons, fruit trays, and flowerpots are made from recycled paper that is repulped and reshaped.

Source: The Environmental Defense Fund