5 tips for better waste management in your business

Effective commercial waste management is essential to achieving your organisation’s sustainability goals. With the climate crisis raging, every organisation has a responsibility to meet environmental standards, and reduce their impact on the planet. Adopting sustainable solutions is a priority for all forward-thinking businesses, both as a way to protect our world and to improve relationships between clients, customers and their supply chains.

True sustainability isn’t possible without effective waste management. Taking a practical approach to waste management can help you reduce the impact your organisation is having on the environment, minimise landfill contributions and take smart steps towards a greener future.

However, staying on top of your waste management isn’t always easy, which is why we’ve put together our top five tips for better commercial waste management in your business.

Measure your waste output

You won’t know how much work you need to put into improving your waste management until you have a clearer idea of where it currently stands. An audit of your current waste output will give you a much better sense of how much waste your business is currently creating, giving you the knowledge you need to take smart steps towards improving it.

This could be as simple as inspecting all the bins in your workplace just before collection to see how full they are. For example, if a 240L wheelie bin is half full at the point of collection, this roughly equates to 120L of waste per week.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

These three words make up the fundamental heart of waste management and sustainability, so get familiar with them. You can ask yourself key questions surrounding each process:

Reduce: can waste be avoided or reduced by changing the way your business obtains goods/services or altering the way you operate day to day?

Reuse: could you or another local business find a use for the waste materials you’re producing?

Recycle: how many of the materials you’re throwing away could instead be recycled?

Cement your commercial waste management goals

Once you’ve taken stock of where you stand in terms of waste production, and how it could be improved, it’s time to commit to positive change. Just like you would with improving earnings, exposure or audience numbers, you should set your business sustainability goals to try and achieve within a month, six months, a year, five years etc.

These goals will depend entirely on your business, how you operate, and how much your commercial waste management needs to improve, but having them in place will give you something concrete to aim for.

Spread the word

You can’t change the way your business operates on your own. You might now understand the importance of waste management in your organisation, but that doesn’t mean much if the rest of your team aren’t on your level. Take the time to hammer home the importance of effective sustainability measures for your staff, so that everyone can do their part to reduce your brand’s overall carbon footprint.

Invest in effective recycling and disposal solutions

Waste management might feel like a mammoth task, which is why many businesses choose to have someone else come and take the rubbish jobs off their hands. Consultiv Utilities are happy to do so, offering effective and efficient waste management.

Our services include:

  • General waste
  • Recycling
  • Glass
  • Food
  • Hazardous waste
  • Clinical waste
  • Covid Test or PPE waste

Businesses across all industries have a legal responsibility to ensure that their organisation operates with a duty of care to waste. We can help you avoid significant, long-term harm to the environment.

Our bespoke waste management plans can help your organisation to achieve full compliance with sustainability regulations. We only use licensed suppliers that are suited to your needs, so you know your organisation’s waste management is in safe hands.