Starting in February, we began a two-month pilot in several buildings where we increased our focus on public spaces like entrances and shifted resources from private spaces like offices. The biggest change for our customers is that we asked them to empty their own trash or wait until we would do it once a week in office space or 3 times per week for lab space. While the rest of the Big Ten already does this, we weren’t sure how folks would react. We conducted a survey to see how customers viewed the pilot and to learn how to improve it.
With over a 170 responses, the feedback was very positive as 90% said that the pilot met their needs. Here’s some of what our customers had to say when asked, “Does the custodial pilot meet your needs?”
“I find that I am more likely to properly recycle by taking my
waste basket over to the main bins and sorting through it as I empty
it. I have a tendency to put everything into my waste basket rather
than sort daily, so by doing it once a week, I am more green.”
“To be honest, I haven't even noticed the change. I am aware that
this pilot was in place but it has not affected by office space in a
negative way one bit. I think it was a fantastic change to implement.”
“It's really no problem. Daily garbage change was nice but not
necessary.”
“I have become more aware of waste, in general, in the office, and
have subsequently started recycling more.”
When asked to comment on how the pilot was communicated or for pilot improvements folks said:
“More signage about the specific day our individual trash pick-up
is -- perhaps by the trash that is emptied daily?”
“I would have liked to see more about what we should expect in the
public areas. For instance, I'd like to know if there is a scheduled
weekly time for vacuuming office areas. Are the stairwells included
in the enhanced public area cleaning? (It doesn't look like it.)”
“Because each individual trash can is now being emptied by "owners"
into the common trash cans on the floors, these common trash cans
seem to be overflowing by the end of the day on certain days. Might
need to tweak that aspect of the program and either add additional
common trash cans or larger common trash cans.”
Thank you to the crews participating in this pilot and to our customers who have helped make this a smooth transition. Results like this give me confidence that the campus will accept this change (especially given the University's financial challenges) and that we have good plans to expand the pilot campus-wide in the near future. We will communicate further details before this will happen.
Mike
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