Lincoln Running Company recycles almost everything.
The cardboard boxes used to ship shoes to the store are flattened using a box cutter, sometimes as many as 200 a week in the early spring.Ìý
Many of the shoe boxes are donated to the Capital Humane Society where they become hideaways for cats and kittens and this summer to a public school camp that uses the boxes for projects.
Staff wash out their plastic food containers, coffee and frozen drink cups and their lunch yogurt containers and toss them into recycling bins.Ìý
Returned shoes go to the schools and a program called Feet First at the F Street Rec Center.Ìý
There’s so little garbage that staff dump out the internal trash can only once or twice a week.
And they do such a great job recycling that the business received the first of the city’s zero waste awards, for a business that recycles 90 percent or more of its trash.
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Recycling has been a decades-old habit for manager Ann Ringlein, whose mother was Scottish, grew up in the Depression and did not throw things away. Ringlein’s reuse, recycle habit carried over to the downtown Lincoln store she manages, where she trains staff to recycle almost everything.Ìý
“We’re small and I’m pretty hands on and I’m here all the time, always nagging them," said Ringlein.
Ringlein used to take the noncardboard recyclables home to put with her home recycling. When the city banned cardboard from the landfill in April, Lincoln Running Co. and nearby stores joined together for recycling services.Ìý
The Lincoln Running Co. is the poster child in a news release from the city, where staff are trying to educate businesses about the new requirement to recycle cardboard and encourage businesses to recycle even more.
More than 50 percent of the waste sent to the landfill in garbage trucks comes from businesses or institutions, Mayor Chris Beutler said in that news release.
The city has a new Leadership Recognition Program to honor businesses for recycling. It also offers onsite consultation and assistance to businesses and institutions who want to start or enhance a recycling or composting program.
Businesses can receive rebates for up to $750 for startup and service costs under that program, called WRRAP. The program includes a self-assessment that provides instant recommendations on how to increase recycling, how-to videos, and tool kits with templates for signs and educational material.
Other businesses that have achieved recycling gold status -- by recycling 40 to 89 percent of their waste -- are Arbor Day Foundation, Assurity Life Insurance, Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, Goodwill, NeighborWorks, Lincoln Region V Systems, Star City Heating and Cooling and Zipline Brewing Co.