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".