Saving, by the numbers.

I started doing things different when I found out it would save me money.

I switched my home over to CFL bulbs when I learned it would save me on my power bill, and I haven’t changed a bulb in the last three years. Looking back, that was my first venture in to a “sustainable” way of life, and it was 100% motivated by saving money at home.

I work with this guy that has practiced sustainability for longer than I have been alive. He got to know me, and he learned I was a “numbers” guy. “Show me the numbers, show me how the numbers are good or bad, and then we can make some decisions.” That’s me. He showed me numbers at work. He showed me bad numbers at work. Time to make some decisions…at work.

I work for this company. This company is big, and sells a lot of stuff. I mean this company is real big, and sells more stuff than any other company. They employ a lot of people (should hit two million before the end of the year). We are controversial, but when you are number one, everyone watches what you do closely. With so many stores and so many people working, yes, mistakes are made. Wait, it’s Wal-Mart. I work for a division of Wal-Mart called Sam’s Club. More importantly, I work for Sam’s in Jackson.

Sam’s in Jackson has a problem – our trash cost lots of money.

Anyway, back to this guy that has practiced sustainability longer than I have been alive. He wasn’t pushing anything, he just brought up some numbers to me. He told me that it is expensive to throw away trash in Jackson, then he showed me the numbers. He even multiplied numbers together to show me the numbers can get real big. But he had an idea.

The idea was great - and the idea was grand: if we put less stuff in our trash compactor, it will cost us less to throw away. The idea was, in fact, incredibly simple. So simple, no one had ever thought of it in our building. The numbers guy said, “how we gonna do it?”

New terms were learned by the numbers guy – tipping fees, incinerator, recycle, reuse, e-waste, and the list goes on and on. At every new term, I am putting numbers to it. If you do the research (the numbers guy did) you will simply see that trash in Jackson County is more expensive than 97% of the nation. That puts us in the top three percentile in the nation (insert comment here of things we may be in the lower 97% percentile). “How we gonna do it?”

The “sustainable longer than I have been alive” guy knows this other guy. If you want to know who the other guy is, come out to Sam’s Club and look at the three containers we have on-site. These two guys REALLY know the numbers when it comes to trash and recycling. Numbers guy has nothing on these two, but numbers guy knows they have the answer to “how we gonna do it?”

It’s called a “partnership.” Sam’s Club partners with a local company that is committed to recycling. That company (wait, Northwest Refuse. Might save you a trip to Sam’s) has allowed us to partner with them to recycle material from our business. If we put less stuff in our compactor, we can save money. Numbers guy likes this a lot. A reduction in expense can almost be considered profit. Numbers guy shares this successful partnership with the leaders in his company.

With timing being everything, the initiator at our building that has practiced sustainability longer than I have been alive (again, wait, Larry Bamm - can’t believe I didn’t mention his name earlier) showed me what sustainability was before the president of our company (Lee Scott) rolled out a program that commits Wal-Mart to sustainability.

Once this commitment was made by our company, it became very easy to implement the ideas Larry had had years in advance, and with increased support. Numbers guy embraces the possibility of saving tens of thousands of dollars per year with our buildings commitment to recycling. We have reduced the material we send to the landfill/incinerator by close to 50%. Numbers guy equates this to expenses being reduced by the same 50%.

To wrap this up, I hope to appeal in some weird way to others to look at recycling in a way that will assist them the most in implementing recycling in their lives. If it is monetary, you will save money if you recycle. I pull all plastic out of my trash at home, and have reduced my trash at home by around 40%. Numbers guy measures this by how full his trash can is at the side of the road every week. My CFL bulbs have reduced my electricity bill by 24%.

As for the more important reason to implement recycling in their lives, it will save the earth. This is a broad statement, but I have not yet attained the emotional reasons for recycling. For those of you that have this outlook, I look to learn from you. In my “numbers guy” mentality, you are the ones I learn from the most. I don’t resist you, I just need more time to learn.

Partner with me. I am the one that has the most to learn. If you have any questions about the monetary impact that implementing a recycling program at your place of business, feel free to contact me at Sam’s Club.

My name is David Milis, and I am a member of Recycling Jackson.