In every office across the UK we waste a huge amount of materials on a daily basis. What is the cost to a business and what is the cost to the environment? Does becoming more environmentally aware mean an increase in spending or can this be done in a way that helps the environment but also saves costs for the company?
Plastic is all around us in the office, the keyboard that I am typing this on, the chair I am sat on and the mouse that I click. The clothes that I am wearing are filled with tiny microbes of plastic that are released when the clothes are washed.
There a number of ways that we can be more careful and use our resources sparingly whilst at the same time keeping an eye on the money that we are spending on every day items.
Recent surveys show that people are significantly less likely to recycle at work than they do at home, 20% of people asked said that it is not in their job description to recycle at work and that it is the responsibility of the company to do so.
According to Wrap 60-80% of all office waste is paper, this is a great place to start as paper is the most widely recycled material in the world.
However not all paper is recycled in an average office for a number of reasons, laziness, ignorance of what can be recycled, lack of correct bins and bins not being in the right place. Some answers are obvious, remove bins from under desks have them clearly marked in obvious places, right next to the printer is a good place to start, talk to staff and educate them about what can recycled and provide the correct bins, meaning separate bins for paper, plastic, metal and make sure that people wash food containers before putting in the bin. These are all small steps that can lead to a reduction in waste from your office without costing the earth.
In a modern office it is very easy to recycle ink cartridges, most leading printer manufacturers and suppliers will take back old cartridges and replace with new ensuring that the at the end of their useful life the cartridges don’t end up in land fill, this is a really good example of improving the environmental impact of your office whilst also cutting cost.
Something as simple as buying glasses for the office rather than the usual supply of plastic throwaway cups is a great step in reducing plastic waste and is something that is very easy to implement. When coupled with a water cooler we can make a saving on the 20,000 bottles bought every second around the world. By replacing the plastic with glass you actually end up making a cost saving over the medium to long term as well as reducing waste.
Challenging the norm is always a good idea for a business in general not just when tackling waste. Just because samples have always been sent out in plastic wallets doesn’t mean that it is the best solution. Invest in some paper branded sample folders and not only do you reduce the amount of non-sustainable material but you also market your company in a more professional way.
As a nation of tea and coffee drinkers we can make some significant differences even with our office drinking habits.
We can swap the plastic bottles we buy our milk for the old fashioned glass equivalent, whilst the resources required to produce a glass bottle is higher than a plastic bottle, the fact that a glass bottle is reused on average 15 times and can be reused up to 50 times before being recycled means the extra cost of producing a glass bottle is more than accounted for.
Plastic is in things that we use in the office that you would never imagine such as the tea bags we use. Plastic is used to seal the tea bag, and often in the bag construction. When you take into account that we as a nation drink 60 billion cups of tea per year and 96% of those are made from tea bag we can make a huge saving in plastic by moving to making our tea in a pot using tea leaves or sourcing plastic free tea bag, which are becoming more readily available.
Lunch time can be a particular problem in terms of single use plastics, often office kitchens or eating areas are not nice places to prepare and eat food. They are often much smaller than home kitchens and ill equipped. Encourage people to bring in their own lunches and inform them of re-usable paper-based sandwich wrappers.
Try to introduce a plastic free days, this may take some planning in terms of meal preparation but it can be a collaborative effort and could become an exercise that can bring employees together with a mutual aim. You could run a plastic reduction competition and reward members of staff who manage to reduce the largest amount of waste from daily use.
Get colleagues to personally invest in reducing office waste as much as possible, explain the value to the environment that recycling and reusing has, also explain to them the benefits to the business and keep them updated with progress. This can be done by organising an awareness day or regular updates via emails and newsletters.
If you are serious about reducing waste whether it be plastic or any other kind in your office then make it part of your mission statement, take it seriously. How can we expect colleagues and customers to take the waste issue seriously when we as a business are not?