University Times

Procurement specialist Carl B. DePasquale, left, and sustainability coordinator Renee Galloway, both of Purchasing Services, check out a sampling of supplies that are being delivered to campus in reusable containers as part of Office Depot’s new GreenerOffice delivery service.

In an effort to make the University campus “greener,” Pitt is participating in a program designed to reduce the number of boxes used to deliver supplies.

Office Depot, a preferred Pitt supplier for office supplies, is reducing packaging as part of its ongoing sustainability initiatives. Many items that would have been delivered to campus in corrugated cardboard boxes now are being brought in paper bags.

The bags are transported in green plastic tote boxes that the delivery drivers then carry back to their vehicles to be reused.

Both the boxes and the bags contain some post-consumer recycled material.

Items weighing more than 20 pounds or large orders, such as cases of paper, will not be delivered in the totes.

Purchasing’s Carl B. DePasquale said the change could eliminate 16,000 boxes — the equivalent of some 3.5 tons of corrugated cardboard — per year at Pitt. He had no estimate of how much money the University might save as a result of having less cardboard to handle and recycle.

However, the new delivery system fits in with Pitt’s sustainability efforts, he said.

Following a pilot program, Office Depot rolled out the new delivery program nationwide last month. The company estimates it will save the equivalent of 20,000 trees in the first year of the program by replacing 5 million boxes with bags.

Office Depot has made a commitment to green initiatives. The company has an environmental strategy adviser, Yalmaz Siddiqui, who was the featured speaker at Pitt’s “Buy It Green” supplier showcase in April.

Information on sustainable purchasing at Pitt, including commodity-specific guidelines, can be found at www.cfo.pitt.edu/purchasing/sustainability.

—Kimberly K. Barlow