Reduce waste in your business 

All businesses have an impact on the environment. For many, pollution and waste are among the most important environmental impacts – and ones that can be relatively easy to control.

Even businesses such as offices and shops produce waste paper and packaging waste. Different businesses also produce different levels of pollution, from the air and noise pollution that harms your neighbours, to emissions, trade effluent and even serious contamination of local water and land.

You must comply with your legal obligations to control pollution and waste, but you should do more – reducing them as much as you can. Where possible, you should try to avoid producing waste or pollution in the first place.

Cutting the amount of waste your business has to handle is the most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly method of dealing with waste.

There are a number of areas you could focus on:

Procure carefully

• Buy only what you need – make sure you only order what you know you can sell, don’t stock pile because you will end up with out of date stock but will save you money.
• Control stock – ensure your oldest dated stock is at the front of shelving and is rotated in your store room regularly
• Streamline processes across departments – ensure all waste is disposed of immediately to the correct receptacle and try to recycle as much cardboard, paper and plastic as possible
• Buy equipment in bulk to reduce packaging – if you are looking to buy new equipment, maybe decide on what your six monthly/annual need may be and order in that quantity. This will reduce packaging on delivery and also carbon footprint where delivery vehicle is involved.
• Consider the product’s durability and lifespan – replacing equipment less often will reduce the waste you create, the money you spend and the possible carbon footprint.

Review your processes

• Ensure that equipment and materials are used efficiently – use everything until it literally runs out (even the till roll – don’t change it until you have to), make sure your toner completely runs out on your printer, don’t throw away that last little bit of whatever you are using – over time this will save you money.
• Packaging is kept to a minimum – if it dosen’t need wrapping DON’T WRAP IT!! Most shoppers these days have reusable bags (compliment them for reusing bags/bring their own), reduce your carrier bag usage by bagging less – your customer will soon ask for a bag if they really need it. Fit more into bags, order your ½ size carriers to use for smaller purchases – this will save money, energy, carbon footprint and more. Less packaging Less waste.

Go to our General Waste Services page and switch to 1st Waste Management today in order to reduce the cost of your waste removal.