Scottish Government

Amnesty Day Information Pack

Introduction

What Is An Amnesty Day?

Amnesty Day Action Plan

1. Planning The Amnesty
2. Carrying Out The Amnesty
3. Concluding The Amnesty

Stationery Amnesty Day (suggested items for a local information sheet)

Amnesty Day Record Sheet (suggested pro-forma)

The Scottish Executive is committed to a policy on environmental improvement to lessen its impact on the environment. The Greening Government policy, which is supported by the Permanent Secretary, was therefore introduced to set out what can and should be done to promote sustainable development across the Estate. The Policy is in line with the priorities of Scottish Ministers and comprises a set of objectives relating to achieving environmental best practice, making best use of resources, minimising waste and encouraging the purchase of environmentally friendly goods and services. The policy has an objective to minimise waste by reduction, reuse, repair and recycling methods and one way of achieving this objective is to hold an Office Amnesty Day.
This pack is designed to assist you to plan and organise an Office Amnesty Day, allowing all staff an opportunity to contribute to conserving scarce resources and freeing up valuable office and storage space at the same time.
The contents of the pack shows you the necessary stages of the Amnesty Day process from planning the event all the way through to the outcome. Take time to look through the pack and remember that local accommodation staff can also provide you with information and advice to make your Amnesty Day a success.

An Amnesty Day is an opportunity to clear out all those items you don't need. Things like old publications, office equipment and stationery.. Most of us are guilty of holding onto something that "might be useful later" - but do we really need it?

Benefits Of Having An Amnesty Day

• Raise staff awareness;
• Increase promotional opportunities for environmental best practice;
• Increase recycling;
• Reduce costs by redistributing/reusing unwanted or surplus material;
• Frees up storage space;
• Reduce safety risk by removing unnecessary clutter;
• Reduce waste;
• Charities benefit.
  

How Can You Contribute?

Check your desk drawers, cabinets and storage rooms and empty out all unused and surplus items. Look for things like:

• Out of date procedural manuals or paper copies of those that are now available on line (remember to separate the paper from its binder);
• Surplus stationery (after all, how many pens can you effectively use at one time?);
• Old promotional material;
• Periodicals, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.;
• Unused or broken machinery (if it's no use to you, someone else may find a use for it);
• Any other accumulated office waste (if it's rubbish, why keep it?).

When giving up office equipment and machinery clearly mark why (e.g. no longer needed, broken, etc.) as this will help later on when sorting the collected items. But the Amnesty day is not just an excuse for a good clear out, it's a chance to learn as well. For example:

• If 10 boxes of pens find their way back into the stationery cupboard that's 10 boxes that didn't need to be ordered in the first place. This in turn is 10 boxes the supplier didn't need to stock and so on right down the line to 10 boxes that didn't need to be made and 10 boxes' worth of raw material that could have been saved.
• When you are throwing out 20 boxes of leaflets printed 2 years ago think about why they are there to be thrown out in the first place. A favourable cost per unit for larger print runs may have seemed like a good idea at the time but when large numbers of leaflets end up in the bin any savings made have just been lost. For instance, in November 2002, 65,000 copies of a leaflet, still in their unopened boxes, were thrown out from Victoria Quay. How much did that save?
  

1. Planning The Amnesty

Discuss With Local Staff
An Amnesty Day can only be successful if we have the commitment from local staff to co operate and make it work. Arrange a meeting to discuss the Amnesty with the senior member of staff in the area. This will help to build local interest and generate some local ownership of the Amnesty. You should aim to:

• Agree what will be required of local staff;
• Identify a local member of staff who will act as a co-ordinator;
• Set a date for the event.

When choosing a date you should ensure that it is convenient for all staff involved. By minimising disruption you can maximise their participation and, therefore, the effectiveness of the Amnesty Day. As well as being a good clear-out, an Amnesty Day is an opportunity to raise awareness of waste minimisation and better housekeeping.

Organise Resources

You will need to organise some additional resources to facilitate:

• Collection

Experience has shown that an Amnesty Day produces large amounts of excess paper such as old publications and procedural manuals. Organise staff to help with the collection and sorting of all the collected items. Porters may be required to help move the waste paper to its disposal container and other items collected to the storage area. It will also be necessary to organise some staff to sort through the collected items to identify what should be sent for disposal and what can be reused.

• Storage

While most of the separation should take place locally there should be room to store all the items collected. One of the roles of an Amnesty Day is to cut down on waste by redistributing items collected to areas where it can be reused. The storage area has to be suitable to sort all items collected and for staff to view what has been collected. Your local accommodation staff should be contacted if you need any assistance with requesting the services of porters and identifying the storage area. It will be helpful to give your local accommodation staff up to two weeks' notice of the Amnesty and of any anticipated extra help.

• Uplift

Uplift of waste paper and general waste should be available through your waste management contractor. A short discussion with your local accommodation staff may be useful to see whether additional uplifts will be required. The staff should also be able to provide you with bags for collection of the waste.

Publicise the event

The local co-ordinator should publicise the Amnesty, circulate the local instruction sheet, "Stationery Amnesty Day", among colleagues and place Amnesty Day Posters around their work area (see later in section).
Charitable and voluntary organisations may be able to make use of some of the items collected so they should be contacted before the Amnesty and invited to "take their pick".
Other staff in the building may also be able to make use of the items collected. Allocate a time for them to view the collected items to identify any that can be re-used elsewhere in the office.

Distribute waste bags

Provide plenty of waste paper bags and encourage local staff to remove paper from lever arch/ring binders before collection to cut down on work later. Be wary of issuing general waste sacks as the tendency will be to "throw out" everything else that isn't waste paper. One of the main aims of the Amnesty is to separate the useful items from the general waste in order to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Hold the Amnesty

If properly organised this should be the easiest step. Local staff should be able to carry this out on their own. Local staff should:

• Identify and collect the Amnesty items;
• Separate it into different categories: paper waste, general waste, general office equipment, and specialised IT and telephone equipment;
• Bag the paper and general waste.

Items like excess stationery should go straight back into each area's own stationery cupboard as this can be re-used locally. It would be useful to count and record items being returned to stationery cupboards on the Amnesty Day Record Sheet as this provides valuable reporting information on resources saved or re-used. Where paper recycling is available, waste paper bags should be taken immediately to the disposal point for uplift. All other items will be moved to the storage area.

You should ensure that all items collected are recorded on the Amnesty Day Record Sheet.

Re-use of collected items

You should already have organised a date and time for the other organisations (see Publicising the event) to view what has been collected. Allow them to take first pick of the items collected.
Circulate an e-mail to staff in the building with a short list of some of the (more useful) collected items and invite them to come and "take their pick" for re-use in the office.
Again, if any items are taken you should also mark it on the Amnesty Day Record Sheet.

Dispose of waste

All items identified as General Waste must be checked before final uplift to ensure it is disposed of correctly. Some items identified as General Waste may be recyclable. However, amnesties can turn up interesting items like old fire extinguishers and crystal detergents which have had to be treated as Hazardous Waste. If necessary you should seek help from your local accommodation staff.

Ensure that all waste is bagged appropriately and recorded on the Amnesty Day Record Sheet before uplift.

Leave it as you found it

Please ensure that the storage area is returned to its original state and layout.

Report Back

Circulate an e-mail to everyone who took part in the Amnesty Day to thank them for their participation and give a short summary of what was collected and what happened to it. This is an opportunity to highlight the volumes of waste that have been accumulated and get staff thinking about how to stop it happening again.
Complete the Amnesty Day Record Sheet and return it to the Amnesty Co-ordinator, along with any photographs that were taken on the day. The Record Sheet and photographs can be used for further publicity.

And Finally…

Give yourself a pat on the back for:

• Freeing up space in desks, cupboards, cabinets and shelves;
• Reducing the amount of waste taken to landfill by making the most of recycling;
• Helping other organisations by providing items they may not be able to afford.
  

What's it all about?

The Stationery Amnesty Day gives all staff an opportunity to contribute to conserving scarce resources by reducing waste going to landfill and giving up any redundant or surplus material/products.

When?

The Amnesty Day will be held on: date

Why?

We are holding an office-wide Amnesty to support the Environmental Policy on waste by encouraging you to dispose of surplus and redundant material/products. This includes:

• staff handbooks;
• business directories;
• surplus stationery;
• unnecessary promotional material;
• any other accumulated office waste;
• unused or broken machinery;
• periodicals, journals, magazines, newspapers etc;
• please check your desk drawers and cabinets and empty out all unused and surplus material. Another area requiring attention is storerooms that accumulate a vast amount of rubbish and often become "black-holes".

Surplus equipment will be:

• Reused; (if possible)
• Recycled; (through organised outlets)
• Redistributed;
• Repaired.

How will you benefit?

• Free up storage space within cupboards, cabinets and shelves.
• Reduce waste taken to landfill (this will help to reduce pollution and benefit the environment as a whole).
• Help other organisations to provide consumables which they may not be able to afford.
• Reduce Direct Running Costs for procurement of stationery.

YOUR personal contribution will reduce the clutter in YOUR building and benefit YOUR office environment. Better use of resources can also reduce the burden YOU place on the environment.

Think Globally and Act Locally to preserve YOUR environment

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How many staff work in the area/areas taking part?

Please provide details:

Were they enthusiastic about participating? If not, please say why.

Please provide comments:

Have you any suggestions for improving this amnesty collection?

Please provide comments:

Thank you for completing this form. Please return it to:

Local accommodation staff / Amnesty co-ordinator's address