Representatives from some of Tucson’s 30 largest office complexes were told they’re responsible for 40 percent of all waste in the region and and that 60 percent of it could be - and should be - recycled.

City Councilman Rodney Glassman hosted a breakfast meeting with Mayor Bob Walkup to encourage commercial recycling.

Glassman said he didn’t think it is the city’s business to mandate recycling, but he wanted "to facilitate businesses doing the right thing."

Less than 20 percent of businesses customers of city Waste Services recycle, according to the Department of Environmental Resources.

Business recycling is as easy as residential recycling in that the city handles the separation of materials, according to Andy Quigley, the city’s director of environmental services.

For the past five or six years, Quigley said, markets for recycled materials have remained strong, bringing about $100 per ton. Quigley had invited representatives of the city’s private waste collection providers to the Sept. 26 meeting to present recycling proposals to each of their individual clients attending from the office complexes.

In addition, Mike Wisely, director of Rise Inc., a faith-based community organization that uses recycling to raise money to provide employment opportunities for people at risk, told attendees that his organization is very flexible in working with clients and collects cardboard, white paper, aluminum, computers, old desks and other office equipment.

Wise said one of his organization’s client companies with 700 employees, many of whom live in apartments without recycling, allow employees to bring materials from home for deposit in their office’s recycling bins.

Ernie Duarte, the city’s development services director, and Craig Gross, deputy director and zoning administrator, said the Development Services Department, which does all plans, permits and inspections, will make it "as easy as possible" for businesses to apply for permits to recycle. For example, Gross said, the city will forgive some of the parking requirements so that businesses can use several parking spaces to deposit recycling bins for pickup.

Quigley explained that while private recycling providers do charge fees for recycling containers and pickup, it actually saves money because it enables companies to reduce their tonnage of regular waste pickup, enabling them to reduce the size of containers or the number of pickup times per week.

Glassman said the city has 6,000 recycling bags to give to the employees of office complexes that launch recycling programs.