Do you want to be a sustainable business? Managing your waste effectively is the first step to becoming an environmentally conscious company. Offices and other business produce huge amounts of waste, and an estimated 90% of it could be recycled! Aside from the green reputation, recycling more could help cut costs as you’ll be avoiding the landfill tax or reducing your waste disposal spend.
We’ve put together four really easy tips for improving your recycling efforts in the office. These small actions can have a huge impact, so what are you waiting for?
Improve Recycling
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Remove waste bins
Many offices have far too many small bins scattered around the large space – for example, personal waste bins under each desk. When disposing of paper, do you think staff will make the effort to walk to the other side of the room and place in the recycling bin, or just choose the closest waste bin? Remove the temptation by removing the unnecessary bins! Also make sure the paper recycling containers are placed strategically, such as near printers and photocopiers.
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Create awareness
Launch a new recycling system and arrange an awareness day to get all staff members on board. It is really important that employees understand the importance of recycling, and how changing a few habits could make a big difference at home and at work.
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Promote incentives
Nothing gets the team involved like a good incentive! You can create any sort of incentive to recycle more, but we recommend making a big deal of the cost savings. Calculate how much money you could save in a year by transforming the majority of your waste into recycling – and decide how that could be spent. Spending it on the Christmas party or a fun day out of the office is our suggestion. Don’t forget to emphasise that the more the office recycles, the more money is saved.
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Establish a recycling ambassador or supervisor
Recycling is a big responsibility, so why not designate somebody to run the program? It could be someone with a real interest in sustainability or a staff member who needs a new challenge. They should be able to motivate their colleagues into recycling more, and take charge when needed for example if all the paper bins are full by lunchtime.
Are you ready to go green and improve your recycling function? Let us know if you have any more office tips to share.
