Sam Farr: “Can I just tell you our offices led this effort on recycling, and my staff really got involved with it. And I'm really…”

“Can I just tell you our offices led this effort on recycling, and my staff really got involved with it. And I'm really surprised how much we are doing, and I am sure a lot of other offices are doing the same. We use only recycled paper products. The paper that is printed on only one side, we go through and have our interns make sure that that becomes the fax paper so that the clean side is used again in the fax process. The white paper, mixed paper, and newspapers each have their own recycling bin. Cardboard is set aside to be recycled. As long as they have a clean side, mail campaign postcards are bundled and used as scratch paper. Each work station in my office has three bins, one for white paper, one for mixed paper, and one for wet trash. The officer manager will spot check the bins to make sure that everyone is separating their trash correctly. And we also have a separate bin for plastics, glass, and cans. Now, that's just one office. And the point here is we can all do this. And there is money to be made by the government in these recycled products. What you are talking about is the Department of Agriculture just down the street has about as many employees as the House of Representatives. They were making tens of thousands, I think about $80,000 a year profit on recycling in the Department of Agriculture. And as you pointed out, the United States Congress was making about $21 a year. So that has all changed thanks to this new leadership.”