Residents of 10 family housing buildings in Heidelberg, Germany, recently walked through a six-week education process designed to significantly reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste that has to be incinerated.

The pilot project, called "Rumbling Rubbish/Keep It Green" was developed by Heidelberg Recycling Manager Travis Vowinkel.

In Heidelberg, the Army's non-recyclable waste disposal costs U.S. taxpayers $831 per ton. During fiscal 2006, U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Heidelberg alone spent $2.4 million on non-recycled waste disposal, according to Daniel Welch, chief of the garrison's Environmental Division.

Conversely, recyclable waste costs between $96 and $448 per ton, depending on the type of recyclables, with an overall cost to U.S. taxpayers in fiscal 2006 of $1 million.

During what Welch called a Dumpster-diving expedition, environmental specialists went through the contents of a non-recyclable container and determined that 80 percent of the trash could be recycled and a further 5 percent could have been recycled if it hadn't been mixed with non-recyclable trash.

With this in mind, in an effort to cut costs, Vowinkel proposed reducing the size of non-recyclable containers at recycling islands throughout Heidelberg's family housing areas.

The size of the container affects the cost because the city of Heidelberg charges the Army based on each container pickup. In addition, if non-recyclable trash is found in a recyclable container, the whole container is deemed non-recyclable.

To make the change, staff from the Environmental Division had to educate those families in the pilot audience.

Staff members met with each family and walked them through the recycling process.

They, along with Heidelberg city sanitation workers, then monitored and tracked each family's progress using a color-coded score board system for each recycling island to indicate success and in some cases failure.

Initial cost estimates show that if 75 percent of housing units use the smaller container, the garrison could save an estimated $427,000 per year.

With such a marked improvement in both natural resource conservation and cost savings, the program was adopted as a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project.

Simply put, Lean Six Sigma is "a methodology focused around process improvement," according to Sonya Draught, plans specialist with USAG Baden-Württemberg Plans, Analysis and Integration Office.

The Army's goal with LSS is, according to Draught, "to make the employee work better and provide a better product to the customer."

The LSS program has had a gradual implementation throughout the Installation Management Command-Europe over the past two years, Draught said.

Of the ongoing projects, Draught said three are in their final phase and others, like the Rumbling Rubbish/Keep it Green project, are expected to move through the LSS phases quickly.

If fully implemented throughout USAG Heidelberg, the project could see a cost savings of $600,000 per year.

"We don't always look at money," Draught said, "but customer satisfaction, which also means a lot to the garrison."