Need-To-Know Guide on Successful Office Recycling
While recycling in offices has for some time now been fairly high on the agenda, not least because landfill prices and environmental concerns are on the increase, the feedback I’ve had from many of the businesses I consult with is that it’s not been smooth sailing.
So why exactly are companies finding recycling so tricky? At the end of the day, there seems to be a number of reasons, but the natural reluctance of people to change their habits and weak recycling strategies are amongst the worst culprits in hampering the reduction of workplace carbon-footprints.
The following guide will help your business get properly on track with recycling by offering some key advice.
Calculating and Tackling Paper Waste
The startling fact is that a typical office generates around 1.5 pounds of waste paper per employee every day, with financial companies boosting this figure to more than two pounds daily. That equates to around 350 pounds per employee per year, or approximately 2.5 tons for a small, 15-person office.
Theoretically, paper recycling should be rather easy. Waste is generally stored near the mail room, and then collected by a recycling firm. The process can fall down however if a few simple key elements are not in order. For example, if paper waste bins are not sufficiently allocated or clearly marked, people will forget to use them for recycling.
Help at Hand
A good way to get to grips with office recycling is to talk with the company who handles your garbage collection, since most mainstream haulers these days offer recycling services. Many will also provide in-house expertise to help you set up, maintain or improve your business recycling programs. In addition, it’s good to know that many of them can also including monitoring, measuring, and reporting of waste in their contract fee.
Benefits of Paper Recycling
By collecting and separating paper that has resale value in the waste-paper industry, you can also make your recycling program pay for itself, if not earn you extra profit. Clean white paper, such as the kind used for letterheads, photocopying, plain-paper faxing, memos, reports, is especially lucrative because it has less contaminants from ink, staples, glue etc.
Top Tips for Avoiding Recycling Pitfalls
Even the most enthusiastic recycling initiatives can fail if there’s not enough education supervision and organisation. The program won’t run itself – it needs to be carefully communicated and monitored if it’s to become successfully entrenched in your business practise.
The following are some the main ways to keep recycling on the right course:
Simplicity
Most people are resistant to change, so if your company recycling program is complex it will have little chance of success. The fewer changes your staff need to make in their daily routines to recycle, the greater the chance they will go Green. Some suggestions are to place collection containers in convenient, conspicuous areas such as toilets, kitchens and copier rooms. Ideally, every desk should have a waste paper bin next to it. Also, make sure to put up clear signs explaining what does and doesn’t go into different bins or collection boxes.
Vigilance
In order to keep on track with your recycling program, it’s important to consistently monitor and measure its progress. To do this, it’s advisable to use such methods as surveys, interviews and inspections to see if people are following directions about what to put where. Also keep track of what kinds and volumes of waste are being purchased, discarded, and recycled so that achievable goals can be set.
Promotion<
Without getting all staff on board, no recycling program can be successful. For this reason, management needs to effectively promote the initiative by explaining what savings it can earn the company and how it is helping the environment. Promotion through emails, newsletters, posters and company meetings are all good ways to boost understanding and enthusiasm. It’s also effective to offer recycling incentives such as prizes or special events for individuals or departments that are doing a good job.
Involvement
Another excellent way to get all employees on board with office recycling is to encourage their suggestions and feedback. It’s a good idea to allocate someone to answer any recycling questions, concerns or suggestions that staff have, so they feel they’re integrally involved in the program.
Conclusion
Some of the main factors that will make for a successful office recycling scheme are having a good recycling service, adequate storage capacity for waste material (baler solutions are an excellent solution for this since they save space by significantly compacting waste) and strong internal education to remind staff that recycling is a company priority.
About the Author: George Rebstrum is an adviser on office recycling.
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