In District Mayor Adrian Fenty’s new City Hall “bullpen” headquarters, something seems to be missing: trash cans. There are no tin receptacles or plastic buckets under the desks, seemingly no place to dump a mountain of garbage amassing by the day.
That is, until you notice the “mini-bins,” 6-inch tall black trash cans placed atop every desk. The tiny cans compel employees to walk to the room’s recycling center and properly dispose of their garbage, or so the theory goes.
“You always assume there’s a trash can around,” said Mafara Hobson, Fenty spokeswoman and new D.C. employee, who sits in the bullpen with most of the new mayor’s top deputies. “It doesn’t quite hit you until you have lunch and you have to throw your trash out, and it doesn’t fit. It definitely forces you to recycle.”
The Office of Property Management, which oversees the year-old mini-bin pilot project, thought it should explain. So this week it put out a pamphlet to all Wilson Building occupants with a note — “We replaced your desk side garbage can with a six-inch mini-bin!”
Turns out, according to OPM, when almost everything is recycled, the actual amount of trash is very little.
“By participating in this program, we will embrace a Zero Waste Policy in support of the District’s recycling law,” employees were told. “Together we can maximize recycling, minimize waste and reduce consumption by reusing, repairing or recycling back into nature or the marketplace the products we depend on everyday.”
