Good Point Recycling is R2 Certified!

[ May 2012, Middlebury, Vermont ]

John, Colin, Pete and Rachael did what was necessary to get our company R2 Certified.  We received our Certificate this week, and it has been registered with R2 Solutions and ANAB.

Who gets the credit?  Not me, that's for sure.  I was travelling to Mexico and South America and Vegas and DC during the past quarter, and sending staff to Nairobi, and negotiating Fair Trade Recycling contracts in Europe and Asia.  While I was off making it more difficult to certify and mass-balance more and more activity, the staff at Good Point Recycling was busy making sure the factory runs, orders are met, material is safely processed, and we do things right.  John and Colin did everything right, and Rachael and Pete made sure the state contract and our clients didn't suffer or stray from the rules John and Colin set.

Me, I just made the job harder.  It's easy to get certified if you refuse console televisions and just take off lease computers and laptops ("no hair on the meat", my pal Joe says).   It's easy if you aren't dealing with 12 countries, and 8 different purchase orders, with different reuse specifications.

Want to get R2 Certified the Easy Way?  Lay off the staff, stop the reuse and exports, don't handle residential material, and buy a shredding machine.  Better yet, don't do it in house - collect the material and send it to someone else's shredder.  The less your company tries to do, the less you must document.

It's easier to get Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) communication if you aren't cross-training women from Mexico, or running a job training program for challenged and disabled people with the local counseling service.  It's easier to certify a few things, than to be a "general practitioner".



All the big picture ideas I declare make work for someone to certify.  Purchase orders must be translated.  The more sales you do of the more variety of material, the more due diligence you must do.

I am deeply and humbly indebted to all our staff, but especially to John F., Colin D., Rachael G., and Peter F., who carried all the water I bragged about.  Our R2 Certification was the first in the state of Vermont, but was also more precious because of how difficult I made it to achieve.

Congratulations to the staff at Good Point Recycling. This Responsible Recycler certificate is never easy to obtain, but I don't think anyone has had a more challenging job than getting it done for this company, in this state, under a high spirited juggler.