Diamond Properties holds recyclable E-waste collection drive in honor of Earth Day

Diamond Properties recently celebrated Earth Day by holding a collection drive to collect recyclable E-waste from its tenants, an effort inspired by Diamond's participation in the Westchester Green Business Challenge (WGBC). In 2014, the Westchester Green Business Challenge, an initiative to move companies toward cost-effective environmental sustainability, motivated Diamond Properties to collect recyclable electronic equipment. One of the challenge's categories was Materials Management/Waste & Recycling. While discussing what they could do to meet the requirements, they decided that each employee would bring in electronics from their homes to complement their office recycling program. Earth Day was fast approaching and it was a logical decision to include all their tenants in this effort. In preparation for their participation in the Westchester Green Business Challenge, Diamond Properties put together a "green team." The team consisted of seven employees from various departments that went around to each tenant's building and spent up to 30 minutes loading the used electronics into vans. Because of the success of the program, the company decided to repeat the collection program for its tenants. To thank them for their participation, each tenant was given a planter along with soil and a packet of pansy seeds to commemorate the day. In keeping with the spirit of the recycling effort, last year's gift to its tenants was coffee cups made out of recycled plastic. Diamond Properties leasing associate, Jessica Beladino, said tenants also shared in the decision of where the collected materials would go, with one tenant recommending Yonkers-based Tekovery. "Tekovery safely removes hazardous materials before recycling any IT assets for precious metals and other materials," Beladino said. "By recycling our e-waste, we reduce our carbon footprint when disposing of our IT assets. They have a no-landfill policy and their recycling processes follow their eGreen environmental procedure. All materials recycled are dispersed into over 40 material streams. Any electronics that can be refurbished are re-distributed." The mass E-waste recycling drive helped Diamond Properties comply with a new state law that does not allow any E-waste in its landfills as of January 1st of this year. Total weight of recyclable e-waste that was collected totaled 4,372 pounds, 25% more than in 2014. Beladino said Diamond Properties plans on continuing the company's commitment to environmental sustainability by holding E-waste collection drives every year with the goal of collecting more recyclables than the year before. Diamond Properties is commercial real estate business that focuses on the acquisition of commercial properties with potential for substantial improvement through hands-on property management, market repositioning, and capital upgrades. Since Diamond Properties was founded in 2013, they have acquired 58 properties, including office, warehouse, retail, residential, and land in five states, and they currently own 44 of those properties, totaling in excess of 3.7 million s/f. They continue to pursue an intense capital improvement and leasing program that, when combined with quality-driven customer service, has enabled them to deliver consistently high tenant satisfaction and lease renewal rates.