Here at Enviro Waste, we’re London’s environmentally-friendly office clearance experts, and as you can imagine, we’ve accumulated plenty of recycling tips for paper-guzzling offices over the years! We love imparting our eco-friendly wisdom, so we’ve put together our five top tips for increasing recycling in an office environment. Are you ready to go green?
1. Top-Down Decisions
No recycling regime will work unless you have the upper echelons of management on board with it. They can sign off on pre-approved processes that will reduce waste and boost recycling figures, and they’re better placed to monitor the situation across the entire company. Staff members will take the scheme much more seriously if the messages are coming right from the top. Get the superiors on board as early as possible!
2. Education
Make sure that everyone knows exactly what can and can’t be recycled. Start with the basics – we can all do our bit to make sure paper cups, drinks cans, cardboard and other everyday waste can be sorted into the correct recycling bins. Then work your way up to educate people about recycling everything from glass, printer cartridges, electronics and light bulbs. If ever in doubt, get in touch with your local eco-friendly office clearance provider, who will be only too happy to give you a few pointers!
3. Buy Recycled
If you’re going to start up a recycling scheme in your office, you may as well go full circle and start investing in high-quality recycled products too. If you can switch out a certain percentage of your existing paper supply or promotional materials for recycled alternatives, you’ll be doing the environment a great favour. Recycled goods are no longer perceived as low-end and low-quality – they’re seen as highly ethical, responsible and a great choice by consumers; so if you use your recycled materials for customer-facing leaflets or marketing goods, even better! They’ll get the impression that you’re an eco-conscious company that takes their social responsibility seriously, and your reputation will get a boost.
4. Communal Waste
They may be convenient, but individual under-desk waste paper baskets and rubbish bins are counterproductive to recycling. Why take a drinks can or a piece of waste paper all the way to the recycling station when you can pop it in the bin under your desk? Remove all of these bins and ensure that at the end of every day, all staff take their recyclable waste to the communal bins in an easily accessible location within the office.
5. Reusable Items
Do away with all foam and paper cups at the coffee machine – encourage staff to bring their own personal mug from home. Opt for rechargeable batteries wherever possible. If staff are only writing on one side of their paper, have them set it to one side so it can be re-used for printing drafts. There are plenty of ways in which everyday items can be reused – it’s the simplest form of recycling!
Just to ram home the importance of recycling your office products, we’ve also obtained a few statistics that are hard to ignore: did you know that recycling just one bag of paper saves enough power to run a TV for 136 hours? How about the fact that one crate of recycled glass could run a computer for 5 hours? A bag of recycled metal or plastic could save enough energy to keep a gigantic 140-watt light bulb running for 80 hours. There’s never been a better time to start recycling – if you need a hand to get started, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at Enviro Waste!
