What? No recycling at one of the largest convention centers (Orlando)?

 OK, this is a break from the usual LINQ, ORM, C# stuff.

 I am at TechEd in this gigantic convention center in Orlando (Orange County Convention Center). When I got a bunch of magazines and flyers that I am not going to have time to read for sure, I decided to look for a paper recycling bin - the kind that is readily available in all Microsoft buildings or in any home in Seattle area. I walked for miles (yes, the distances in the convention center are incredible) and asked several convention center/ event staffers but could not find any recycling bin. There was no shortage of trash cans but it is beyond me why recycling is such an alien concept in a place where 10k-70k folks at a convention are likely to produce more recyclables in a day than most small towns in US would do in a month.

To make matters worse, I lug back the stuff to my hotel and find that recycling is an equally alien concept in the hotel as well (Rosen Plaza if you want to know).

Now tell me, am I just a left coaster with a distorted world view or are some folks seriously behind the curve? Time to take this up with folks in convention center management and our recycling champions on Redmond campus!

Published 06 June 07 09:35 by Dinesh.Kulkarni

Comments

# Uwe Keim said on June 7, 2007 3:43 AM:

Good posting! For us here in Germany, we usually have that biased image of the U.S. being full of people that don't care about environment and recycling and that stuff at all.

Great to see that you just have proved the opposite and that there ARE people caring about!

# Charlie Calvert's Community Blog said on June 20, 2007 5:26 PM:

Welcome to the XXVIII Community Convergence. In these posts I try to wrap up events that have occurred

# steve said on July 2, 2007 10:58 AM:

I do not pick up magazines, advertisements and other paper I do not want to read or carry. Color paper magazine recycling is not really worth it due to the high cost of breaking down the glossy ink.  Only white computer/photocopy paper and newspaper generally are worth recycling.  We have come quite a long way here in the last ten years given that almost all water is recycled for most of the country, 1/4th of the electricity is from renewal resources and that each person pays thousands of dollars each year for recycling/anti-pollution devices which is built into the cost of just about every product you buy (For example, 1/4th the cost of your new car is directly due to pollution controls).    

# Noah said on July 2, 2007 4:28 PM:

I live in Tampa Bay, a stone's throw from Orlando, and while recycling is not as strong of a cultural discipline it is on the west coast, it is still commonplace.

Our local neighborhood as a plastic recycling program, all retail business have cardboard & paper crushers, and my place of business has paper recycling bins everywhere.

I would guess it has something to do with either an expense for the convention center in terms of janitorial expenses, or possibly a poor decision that 'separate' trash cans are not as universal an idea to all the tourists.

Neither is a very good excuse, especially in the disposable-everything-land of Orlando.

# Russell H said on July 3, 2007 11:17 AM:

You would find the same thing in Pleasanton CA, where I live (San Francisco Bay Area).  I was surprised to find that local trash company uses automatic sorters for sorting trash.  Maybe the same thing is going on in Orlando.

# MMinstrell said on September 7, 2007 6:24 PM:

No, you are not just a left coaster... huge facilities such as convention centers and sports arenas or even hotels are just now barely getting on line with recycling.  Some locations have GREAT programs going and some have NOTHING.  EPA is behind the curve in helping as well, but you can check out some info on www.epa.gov/recycleonthego for info about recycling "On The Go" or when you are not at work or home (assuming you have recycling at work and at home but not at other events/locations you may attend).  Of course, as a "customer" it is important to ask- if you are booking the show, get it in there, if you are attending, ask the show coordinators about it, ask them to book a location that you CAN recycle at- ask and EVENTUALLY it may happen... good luck!

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About Dinesh.Kulkarni

I am a program manager in the Visual C# Product Unit of Microsoft. I am currently working on the LINQ project with specific responsibility for DLinq. Previously, I have been in a PM in SQL Server working on ObjectSpaces and DataSet. In pre-MS life, I have worked for companies ranging from startup to IBM on a wide range of software projects. Before I started working, I did M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. (CSE) from the University of Notre Dame and B.Tech. E.E. from IIT Bombay, India.

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