Increased sustainability is a target many companies have been working towards in recent years. Aiming to lower their carbon footprint and have a positive impact on the environment. Recycling is a waste management tactic that is often overlooked because companies don’t deem it the most effective method of reducing their impact on the environment. However, responsible recycling is vital in ensuring that as little waste as possible ends up in landfills. This means you must ensure plastic, glass and cardboard recycling is handled appropriately and that you have the correct commercial recycling bins for your business.
Unrecycled waste is responsible for a large amount of air and water pollution and recycling helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As time goes on, we are slowly running out of landfill space meaning we will soon run out of space for items that can’t be recycled. As a result, we should aim to recycle as much as possible and ensure that it is responsibly managed via a waste management plan and commercial waste collection.
If you think your workplace could improve your recycling, read on to discover our tips.
Provide recycling bins
First and foremost, while it may seem obvious, make sure that you have plenty of recycling bins available to make recycling easy. Providing plenty of recycling bins and ensuring they are easily accessible will prompt your employees to use them more often. Put a range of recycling bins in areas where they are most needed. For example, if your workplace is an office, place bins in the kitchen for food packaging and near printers for scrap paper. Many other workplaces would benefit from the right recycling bins in the right areas, so take some time to think about what your workplace may be lacking and what you can do to improve the needs of your business.
Consider using different bins for different types of recycling and make them colour coded and labelled so employees or customers don’t even need to think about what they are doing when they are throwing items away. Ideally have one for paper and cardboard, tin and glass and one for plastic. Increasing the number of bins will also mean that there is more space to collect recycling. For example, if you only have one bin for all types of recycling, you may run out of space quickly and people will just resort to throwing items into a normal waste bin because there is simply no space for recycling.
Educate staff
One of the biggest influences on your business’s ability to recycle well is getting your team on board. Your employees will most likely be the people who are throwing away the most stuff. If they aren’t aware of how detrimental it is to not recycle their waste or not know where they can recycle their waste, they won’t be doing it regularly. Any other waste improvement strategies you implement are heavily dependent on the commitment of your employees. You should continuously educate your staff and ensure they are aware of the recycling areas in your workplace.
You can do this by ensuring you include recycling awareness in induction training for new employees, provide signage and instructions, set friendly reminders and collect regular feedback from your team. This will give you a greater sense of whether your waste improvement strategies are working and what you can do to further improve them. Getting everybody within your workplace to work towards sustainability goals will provide a sense of collaboration and team bonding because you are all working together to achieve a goal. Not only will your carbon footprint go down, but you will also have greater employee communication, which can lead to higher productivity levels.
Use a commercial waste collection service
Rather than having to deal with your waste disposal yourself, hiring a responsible waste collection service ensures that not only is your recycling picked up, but it is also separated and as much as possible is recycled. Rather than throwing away your waste into the general waste bins and allowing it to be taken away to landfills via standard rubbish collection, a waste collection service can ensure it is appropriately disposed of.
Recycling specialists help businesses work towards a more sustainable future by implementing programmes such as Zero to Landfill. This helps to save resources and energy, reduce carbon footprint and promote a sustainable business community. Many commercial waste collection services are able to take all your waste and separate it themselves before disposing of it. You can schedule your collection to fit in with your business operations and they can even provide you with skips, wheelie bins, bags, sacks and hazardous waste drums to make it simpler for you. It helps you avoid overcomplicating your waste management and ensure you can recycle as much as possible.
Speak to your local waste collection company and they will be able to offer bespoke solutions that will work for you and your business.
Develop a waste management plan
A waste management plan gives you greater control over your company’s waste habits and allows you to find more effective ways to manage your waste. In order to create a waste management plan, you will need to take a look at your rubbish collection and consider how much waste you are producing and where it is going. Ask yourself how much is being recycled, who is collecting it and how much of each waste type you are throwing away. For example, if you are ending up with a significant amount of plastic waste at the end of each week, consider if there’s any way you can throw away less plastic. This could be through prompting your employees to bring in food in reusable containers or get milk delivered in glass bottles instead of buying it from the supermarket.
The waste hierarchy shows the several disposal methods that you can use when you are getting rid of rubbish. You should try to get rid of your waste using this hierarchy so as little as possible ends up in landfill. The hierarchy starts with reducing, so you must minimise the amount of waste you create in the first place. Next is reusing and recycling, whatever you do create, consider whether it can be reused in your business or recycled. And lastly, recover and dispose – whatever is left should be checked for any elements that could be recovered before going to landfill.
If you are buying a new printer for example, does it need to be brought new and in a cardboard box, or can you pick up a second-hand printer without a box? If you buy new, could you reuse the box or will it need to go to cardboard recycling? Taking this approach to your waste will help minimise the amount you create and ensure that what you do produce is handled responsibly.
Ensure proper rubbish collection
It’s important to ensure that you are getting your rubbish collected by the council or by a commercial waste collection service that is responsible and compliant. This makes sure that your waste is correctly recycled and that anything that can be recycled will be. From cardboard recycling to the provision of commercial recycling bins, it’s vital that every business takes responsibility for their rubbish, does what they can to minimise it and takes the steps to see that it is correctly disposed of.
Devon Contract Waste – Refuse Collection in Devon
Are you looking for glass, plastic and cardboard recycling in the South West? Devon Contract Waste is an environmentally friendly commercial waste disposal service, provisioning businesses with a sustainable solution to waste collection. Our waste management and recycling services cover Devon, Cornwall and Somerset – from Lands End to Burnham-On-Sea! To learn more, get in touch with our friendly team today. We can provide commercial recycling bins to ensure your workplace is kept clean, tidy and compliant.