When King County passed its Recycled Product Procurement Policy in 1989, it initiated a tremendously successful program of local recycled product procurement as well as outstanding national leadership. Through skillful teambuilding and judicious use of the ordinance's recycled paper price preference, program coordinator Eric Nelson has taken the County's recycled paper purchasing from only 9% of its total paper budget to its current 90% (including printing, tissue and towel). 98% of the County's copy paper purchases are recycled. But it wasn't easy.

Nelson thought all he'd have to do was intercept product requisitions and rewrite them to require recycled content. But, he says, "We found out right away that simply buying recycled paper and substituting it without consulting with the people who were having it substituted on them causes problems."

"Changes don't happen because bureaucrats dictate them," he continues, "but because users agree the product can do the job well, at a good price." So Nelson applied psychology.

With support from Purchasing and the head of warehousing, he agreed that agencies could continue getting their previous nonrecycled paper if they requested it in writing, signed by their agency chief. Only a handful of agencies continued to insist on virgin paper. The departments having problems with recycled paper were privately enrolled in Nelson's Step Two.

Whenever he found a new copy paper, he asked them to "help us try it out." Sometimes the new paper solved their problems. By continually substituting until he found the right paper for each agency, Nelson's team eventually got all the agencies, including those that originally had opted out, onto one recycled paper.

The workload mushroomed uncontrollably when he turned to other recycled products. That's when Karen Hamilton joined the team. She describes their work as "being facilitators between all the recycling information out there - whether technical or new product-related - and the departments in the County that could use it."

Local departments are not the only beneficiaries. King County Purchasing's extensive website includes their recycled product information. Now users all over the world can learn from the County's leadership. Besides actual contract information, the website offers model language for policies, specifications and contracts as well as purchase reports and evaluations for a wide array of paper and non-paper recycled products.