ECONOTES : Small Step Helps Shape Big Changes

April Corns started a recycling program in her office two years ago, after she realized that “stacks and stacks of nice white Xeroxed paper” were being pitched daily.

“I’m an environmentalist and I can’t stand waste,” says Corns, an executive sales assistant at King World Productions. So she put recycling barrels throughout the office complex and loaded her Honda Prelude every weekend for a trip to the Burbank Recycling Center.

When the loads got too big to handle, she doggedly tracked down Recyclefest, an offshoot of the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industry, which matches recycling vendors and offices needing pickups. As a result, Corns was a recent winner in the fourth annual “Best Paper Recycling Contest” of the American Paper Institute (API). Her “little” program has recycled more than 4,000 pounds of paper, noted the API, which awarded her $250 and a framed certificate.

Corns and the King World staff celebrated with a pizza party. “I’m a very organized person, and this just makes sense,” says Corns.

“And it’s so simple: You just go to the barrel, you drop it in, you walk away. It’s like, ‘Why not?’ ” API agrees. Its national contest attracted 300 entries in four categories this year. The 20 winners, collectively, diverted more than 13,000 tons of recyclable paper last year from landfills.

“They proved that ordinary individuals really can make a difference,” boasted the API press release. On recycled paper.