The importance of efficient waste management can be surprisingly easy to underestimate, especially when it comes to new and small business owners. However, waste strategies are truly crucial. Not only do they allow you to reduce your monthly expenses, but they could also contribute to the sustainability of your business, and ultimately the way your company is perceived by the public. Clearly, waste strategies are an essential aspect of the business to focus on from the very beginning. Whether you’d like to minimize costs or even grow a green business, here are some simple tactics that will help you improve your waste management:
Measure your current waste
When creating a waste management system, the most important thing you should do is perform a waste audit. Walk around your premises, assess the current amount and type of waste, determine its weight and volume, identify the main sources of waste, see how often trash is collected, and consider consulting the cleaning staff. This will give you a better idea of the waste you generate, provide more insight into unnecessary waste sources and unutilized recyclable trash, as well as offer better, more affordable solutions for efficient waste management.
Make recycling a priority
Recycling is one of the most obvious solutions. While recycling services might come at a slightly higher cost, this solution is significantly more eco-friendly, and it might help you to reduce other types of waste as well. Once you’ve identified the forms of waste you generate, recognizing the recyclable materials will be a much simpler task. Then, all you’ll have to do is place recycling bins around your premises, corresponding with the type of recyclable waste you’d like to separate and collect. Good collection services will take care of the rest, but make sure all your employees are informed and educated on the subject to maintain consistent efforts.
Include collection systems
How you handle and manage your waste is determined by the way you collect it, so make sure you do it appropriately. If you’ve decided to recycle, for instance, separate bins for paper, plastic, and glass might be needed. In case you’re left with metal and wood scraps, they might need to be separated for recycling as well, while any toxic or otherwise dangerous byproducts often require unique containment and disposal solutions. Create a collection system on your premises that suits the type of waste you produce the most. Don’t forget to clearly label each bin and container either, as signage will ensure your entire staff follows the correct disposal protocols.
Incorporate waste compactors
A good collection system can provide plenty of benefits, but you may still have some issues with the amount of waste you generate, depending on the industry you operate in. In those cases, investing in a trash compactor might be the best solution. Enabling you to easily compress the waste you produce, compactors are quite an efficient method of reducing the number of bin empties required for your facility and consequently minimizing waste management costs. If you find the most suitable solution, waste compactors could allow you to save time and space and even improve the hygiene at your premises as well.
Attempt to reduce waste
Naturally, reducing the amount of waste you produce in the first place is the best solution for waste management, cost-efficiency, and overall sustainability. And while many companies might not be able to minimize industrial and similar types of waste, what you can reduce is the day-to-day trash most of us tend to generate. This means offering reusable alternatives instead of single-use plastics, going paperless, maintaining your equipment, only buying new electronics when necessary, and similar efforts. You might also want to reconsider the amount of plastic packaging included in your main supplies, products, and shipments for less avoidable waste.
Give composting a try
Along with recycling, composting has also become a more popular solution in recent years, and large organizations aren’t immune to this change either. If your company produces any amount of organic waste during the production process or even daily operations, consider adding this waste to a compost pile you’ve created on your premises. This will allow you to reduce the amount of trash you send to the landfill, provide you with a more convenient method of disposing of your organic waste, and it might even help to create better soil and a healthier environment in your community as a result.
Find good local collectors
Once you’ve identified the amount and the type of waste you generate and attempted to reduce what was possible, you will also be able to find the best recycling and waste collection contractors in your area. Whether you decide to work with local government or private services, finding suitable collectors is key to good waste management. They will be able to dispose of your waste accordingly, provide different solutions based on the type of trash your company produces, and even offer deals and discounts to save you some valuable cash if you make the right partnership.
Efficient waste management is never a simple task for any business. But with the right tactics and a solid plan on hand, reducing, managing, collecting, and disposing of waste will be a much more streamlined and successful process.
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