Ikea stands above the crowd

I'm very happy that such a large store as Ikea, with the hundreds of people that must pass through its cafeteria daily, has organics-collection bins out in its public areas. Very few retail stores in the metro area collect organics -- in fact Ikea may be the only one.

I saw two kinds of stations, one with good signs and one with bad signs.

The good signs. These are prominently displayed, and as you walk up to the bins, the signs catch your eye.


A bunch of trash thrown into the organics, unfortunately.



The bad signs. These signs lie flat, facing upward, rather than facing you as you walk toward the bins. And the signs are quite a ways away from the holes. No one seemed to be bothering to read the signs because there was a lot of trash in the organics bin, and a lot of organics thrown into the trash.

I loved the recycling & trash stations scattered throughout the store. You've heard me say it before, but this is the way to do it: group all the bins together rather than having standalones.



Ikea also collects CFLs for recycling.

I loved this, too: a bin for cardboard near the merchandise-pickup area. So you can unpack your boxes and leave them at the store when you're loading your new purchases into your car. Brilliant.