7 Innovative Ways Your Business Should Follow For Waste Reduction
Do you know your business probably produces twice as much waste than it did a couple of years ago? Recent studies have shown that with the increase in over-packaging and plastic use, waste materials are on the rise in office spaces. Here are 7 innovative ways your business should follow for waste reduction –
Do you know your business probably produces twice as much waste than it did a couple of years ago? Recent studies have shown that with the increase in over-packaging and plastic use, waste materials are on the rise in office spaces. Here are 7 innovative ways your business should follow for waste reduction –
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- Reducing Packaging
Around 40% of waste materials in first world countries come just from packaging. Assess the packaging used in your office. Simple steps such as eliminating one-time-use containers can go a long way. For instance, in 2014 the corporation Pepsi made a switch from crenulated cardboards to recyclable plastic distribution containers saving themselves over $44 million and a lot of unnecessary wastage.
- Reviewing Your Office Facilities
Analyze your facility and assess the supply-chain of materials that eventually become waste. Address issues such as
- Switching to compostable and recyclable products
- Placing separate waste bins for recyclable and non-recyclable products. Label these bins properly
- Assess how jam-packed the compactors and recycling bins are before pick-up
- Eradicate the Use of Bottled Water
Using filters and glasses is much more waste-effective than water bottles. If you use bottled water in offices, it costs 2000 times more than using glasses, recyclable bottles or filters. These investments pay for themselves in the long run.
- Pigs – Nature’s Own Recycling Machine
For almost a decade now, the American company Barthold Farms has been offering a food waste program involving over 350 restaurants, grocery shops and other accommodations in Minneapolis, picking up food waste and donating it to local pig farms. A much profitable venture as compared to landfill hauling, donating wasted food products from your office to pig farms is an excellent ecologically sound effort.
- Going Paperless
Technology has afforded offices to go completely paperless. Bank of America for instance recognized the high cost and effect of their excessive paper use and since 2014 have cut back severely on daily paper use. Since then they have reduced their paper consumption by over 30% recycling and saving almost 30,000 tons of paper. That’s equivalent to saving 200,000 trees!
- Measuring and Rewarding Waste Efficiency
Managing something you can’t measure is impossible. Make sure your transporter is assessing your daily office waste, and then compute that amount on a per-person basis. Share the findings, make it perceptible and ask everyone to reduce as much as they can. Contests between various departments can be an amazing motivating factor.
- Collect E-Waste
Electronic waste is extremely harmful for the environment. Arrange for bins where workers can dispose e-waste and present it as a benefit to your workers. On top of that, ensure that your e-waste vendor is certified and is actually recycling your e-waste and not selling it to for profit.
Reducing waste is not a mere cost-effective or an eco-friendly effort. It’s an endeavor that demonstrates proper industrial management, contributing to corporate social responsibility. Decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and diminishing the universal health hazards caused by our waste production is a universal responsibility.
Summary
With the increased amount of waste that businesses produce, waste reduction in office spaces is of crucial importance. There are in fact several simple ways to do so, such as avoiding the use of bottled water, cutting down on or completely eliminating the use of paper, donating food waste to pig farms, and so on.
Reshali Balasubramaniam
Head of HR, HR Counselor and adviser at https://jobpal.lk and EFutureTech Systems. Submit your resume online and be contacted by prospective employers.