Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP)

Owens Pharmacy #6

WRAP Award Winner: 2005

Introduction

A family owned-company, Owens Healthcare opened its first pharmacy in 1957 in Redding. Today the company has eight locations that provide regional pharmacy and other medical services.

In February 2006, Board staff interviewed Christopher Dold, who started reuse, recycling, and environmentally preferable product purchasing at Owens Pharmacy #6, a long-term-care pharmacy in Chico. Owens #6 prepares prescriptions for institutional settings in five northern California counties, including mental health, assisted living, skilled nursing facilities, and the jail. In 2005, Dold applied for and received a Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) award for Owens #6.

Dold started work at Owens #6 in May 2001, graduated from California State University Chico in mid-2006, and left Chico to attend pharmacy school. When he started at Owens #6, the facility was not recycling. Its waste stream included cardboard, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and brown glass bottles, paper, packing material, foam cups, newspaper, film plastic, plasticized labels, paper towels, and employee lunchroom waste.

Landfill Overload

Dold, who began as a delivery driver, would pass by the landfill, visible from Highway 99, on his routes. One day he decided to stop in. "I grew up in this area and I used to go to the landfill with my dad," he explained. "I remembered it being a long drive to get into where you would dump your trash over the edge of this large pit. Now it isn’t that far away and it’s a huge mound. I could not believe it was the same place.

"The only purpose of a landfill is to keep trash, the stuff does not break down, does not go away. It is just an eyesore. Something is wrong when you have that amount of trash in a county that has less than 250,000 people."

One of the large volume items in the Owens #6 waste stream was cardboard, generated from the continuous shipments of pills, packed in cardboard boxes. Some of the boxes would be reused for shipping out, but most would go into the trash. "I looked at the environment and at what we were doing," explained Dold. "I figured if I didn’t do something, who would?" He started collecting the cardboard and dropping it off on his way home in the recycling collection bins at an elementary school in Paradise.

After a few months, Dold became a stock clerk. Working inside the office, he saw more opportunities to recycle. Inside the cardboard boxes were plastic and brown glass bottles of pills sealed with film plastic and packed with foam peanuts or bubble wrap. The pills would be put into other plastic bottles and the original bottles thrown away, along with packing peanuts and other foam packaging, plastic film wrap, and shipping paperwork. Also going into the trash were bottles, cans, and newspapers that employees would bring in.

Dold noted that Federal Drug Administration regulations are sometimes waste promoting. For example, one type of antidepressant used to be shipped 500 pills to a bottle and now comes in bottles of 30 pills, using a lot more plastic.

Drug companies also contribute to waste, Dold noted. He considered petitioning manufacturing companies to discontinue the practice of putting a 1.5-inch-tall bottle into a 3.5-inch-long box. This practice is done, he explained, so that the product presumably is more visible on a retail shelf. "The waste generated by this practice does not offset the monetary gains. Putting the bottles inside of a box is a waste, period. There is no reason the bottles can’t sit on the shelves by themselves."

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Setting Up the Recycling Program

Dold approached the pharmacy manager and asked if he could set up a formal recycling program. The manager was supportive and Dold announced the program at one of the regular morning meetings with the 18 employees, all but 4 of whom are full-time. He explained how the new collection system would work. Most employees were receptive although few had been exposed to a similar program in other work situations.

To recycle the medicine bottles and their related packaging, Dold created a system of two trash receptacles in which a smaller one nests inside of a larger one. This made a one-container unit that fit under the counter tops, making it easy for the clerks to put the commingled recyclable pill bottles, film plastic, paper, and used packing material into the bigger trash receptacle. Nonrecyclables, including bottle caps and plasticized labels, go into the smaller one. "I wanted to make the transition to recycling as easy as possible," he explained. "If there were too many places to put items, the likelihood of everyone getting on board is lower. This setup makes it very easy for people to do their job well and recycle at the same time."

Dold also initiated reuse of the peanuts and bubble wrap, storing them in an accessible container under his counter. Employees can drop off or take the material for use. "This is not a huge part of the business," he noted, "but what we do get is used again. Our drugs come from a wholesaler in Sacramento, and arrive in plastic totes that are reused. The packaging material coming from the manufacturers is dealt with at the wholesaler’s warehouse."

Cartridges for their fax machines, copiers, and computers are recycled locally or come with a printed label so that they can be sent back to the company for recycling.

Collection
On his breaks, Dold emptied the medicine bottle recycling receptacles into large 10–22 gallon plastic containers located by the facility’s back door. Waste confidential and some white office paper is put in bins located near workspaces. These bins are emptied by employees into a large rolling can in the back of the office that is collected by Chico Shred twice a month for shredding and recycling. About 1 ton per year of paper is now being recycled.

One or two times a week Dold had been loading the plastic bottles, cardboard, and newspaper into his truck and dropping them off to a recycler on the way home or on the weekends. This would take him 40–60 minutes to load and unload the material, all of which was on his own time. Annually, he had been hauling about 1,400 pounds of the plastic bottles for recycling, 500 pounds of the glass bottles, and 1,200–1,400 pounds of cardboard.

As a result of Dold’s efforts, in 2005, Owens #6 got a 2-cubic yard cardboard dumpster from the hauling company to collect the cardboard for recycling. At the same time, they reduced the size of their garbage dumpster from 3 cubic yards to 1.5 cubic yards. This resulted in an overall savings of $25 a month.

After the visit by WRAP program staff, Dold contacted the waste hauler and is working on getting four to six 64-gallon bins for co-mingled collection of all recyclable materials. He is also attempting to eliminate the cardboard dumpster. "I believe we can get all of our plastic, glass, newspaper, and cardboard into a few of these bins," he explained. "This will result in a small savings but a lot more convenience. Our representative at Waste Management, Mitch Jagoe, has been very receptive to helping us figure out what will work best for our company. He told me it’s in their best interest to help make this work, because that will reduce trash to the landfill and recycle more items for future use."

Spreading the Concept
"The idea is to recycle, not necessarily to save money but to do what we can to help," explained Dold. "One of Owens Healthcare’s six key values is 'giving back to community where we work and play.' And the recycling is a way to do that."

Dold credited his wife with getting him started in recycling, and then he got hooked. "It is contagious. I just kept thinking about what more I could do, what else is there?"

He became the office recycling expert. People will bring items to him and ask him if they can be recycled. People also bring in their recyclables from home, which he encourages.

Dold also inspired his fellow employees. "One of my coworkers has now become invested in waste reduction in the kitchen area and has improved the system I set up," Dold explained. "He has replaced the old bins used for cans, glass, and plastic bottles with full sized cans, making emptying easier, and cleaning up the kitchen aesthetically."

Asked about obstacles, Dold explained that the main one is the mindset. "The younger generation was taught to recycle in school," he explained. "So it was a habit taught early on. Change is harder if have being doing one thing all your life and then need to learn something new, like recycling.

"New people who come to work seem to catch on to the recycling right away. At the same time, they are surprised that we recycle because they have worked at other places where there was no recycling."

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Waste Prevention and Reuse

Dold reported in his WRAP application that the pharmacy has donated fax machines to a local nonprofit organization, Computers for Classrooms, that makes necessary repairs and distributes donated electronic equipment to schools.

The company’s monthly newsletter is currently mailed to each employee and given to them with their paychecks. Dold has contacted company management about discontinuing the mailing of the newsletters so that employees only get one copy. The company responded that, due to "employee feedback," they were going to stop mailing out the newsletters unless employees specifically requested that. None are being sent to the Chico employees, he noted.

There are reusable cups for employee use in the kitchen.

Environmentally Preferred Purchasing

Dold also initiated buying recycled-content copier paper and other recycled-content office products. "I started buying the highest percentage recycled content. Now others who buy paper look for the green packaging which is the recycled paper. They just assume that is what they are supposed to get."

For other office supplies, he explained that they use Office Depot’s ordering system that indicates whether an item is environmentally preferred; if it is, then they will buy that item. As reported in the company’s WRAP application, Owens #6 buys copier paper with 35 percent postconsumer content; toilet paper and paper towels that are 60 percent postconsumer content; plastic garbage bags that have at least 50 percent postconsumer recycled content; hanging folders that are 95 percent postconsumer content; manila folders with 30 percent postconsumer content; standard businesses envelopes with 40 percent postconsumer content; and clasp envelopes with 20 percent postconsumer content. None of the paper products, including the towels and toilet paper, have bleach added in the recycling process.

One of their fax machines uses cartridges that are refilled by Laser Renewsit in Chico. Dold noted that these refilled cartridges were significantly cheaper ($40 for recycled versus $110 for new) and the quality was fine. They also use refilled cartridges in all of their other equipment, resulting in a cost savings of $20–$70 per cartridge, depending upon the machine.

Owens #6 has four vehicles in its fleet. Two of these are 2005 Ford Focus wagons, which average 30 miles per gallon and are listed by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) as Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles (PZEV), which are 90 percent cleaner than average new model year vehicles.

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What’s Next

In anticipation of graduating and leaving the area, Dold was taking steps to institutionalize the waste reduction program he started. With the recycling, for example, he was working with the waste company to haul the recyclables as part of its regular service. "I’m trying to make it as easy as possible to recycle," he explained. "I want to make it so anyone can take the recycle bin from inside, walk out back to dump it in a recycling bin, rather than the dumpster. No sorting required." Dold was also training a coworker to operate the program.

Items left in the Owens #6 trash that could potentially be diverted from the waste stream include paper towels and lunch room waste. Dold noted in his WRAP application that they would like to reduce the number of paper towels. One possibility would be to use cloth towels. After WRAP’s visit, he reported that the same co-worker, who took over the kitchen recycling, brought in a load of hand towels which are now being used in the kitchen.

Although Owens #6 promotes the use of reusable cups by employees, the company also buys styrofoam cups. "I encourage everyone to put these cups into the bins," noted Dold. "I would like to eliminate them altogether, and am still trying to figure out how to do that. Again, it’s all about changing habits. We’ve been using disposable cups for so long, that it may take a while to get a system of glass cups/mugs to be used exclusively."

In addition to the Ford Focus wagons, the Owens #6 fleet also includes a Ford Ranger and a Subaru, neither of which is a PZEV. Dold talked to management about trying to get a smaller car for deliveries, one that would meet PZEV standards and get high mileage. Currently none of the cars use re-refined motor oil, but Dold had planned to research this possibility.

"Overall, our recycling program is still in a fledgling stage," says Dold. "It is constantly being modified and expanded for the better. I am encouraged by the enthusiasm of my coworkers when it comes to recycling, not because it saves money, but because it’s the right thing to do. The more people we can get thinking about recycling, the less likely recyclable items will end up in the trash."

Contact Information

Christopher Dold
Owens Pharmacy #6
3760 Morrow Lane, Suite B
Chico, CA 95928
(530) 899-8877

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