At the last count, the USA recycled around 292 million tons of solid waste per annum. Even that’s not enough.
Every year, offices, stores, schools, hotels, restaurants, and other commercial endeavors generate billions of pounds of waste. Most of this ends up in landfills across the country.
If you own a commercial building you can do your bit to assist with federal recycling initiatives. It’s up to you to take steps toward recycling your commercial waste responsibly.
Here’s what you need to do.
Benefits of Recycling Commercial Waste
Chances are, you’ve never paid much attention to what happens to your commercial waste. You need to start.
You’re missing out on the important benefits that commercial waste recycling has to offer. These are:
- Recycling cuts down on disposal costs and saves you money
- A good understanding of waste management means you can negotiate with contractors for better recycling rates
- Waste tracking and management reporting means you can answer difficult questions form stakeholders
- Improving your recycling efforts boosts your corporate image
- A good image means you’ll attract quality tenants and employees
- Recycling reduces greenhouse gas emissions and lowers your carbon footprint
- Recycling conserves the natural resources you need to run your business, like water and metals
Now that you know why you should pay closer attention to your commercial waste disposal program, keep reading to find out how to get started.
Steps You Can Take to Manage Commercial Waste Disposal
The basic principles of commercial waste recycling are like household recycling initiatives in some ways. Yet, there are several important differences according to your industry.
Yet, there are several important differences according to your industry.
Commercial waste mainly refers to the by-products and scraps created by your business every day. These could include metals, paper, wood, and so on. In the mass quantities produced by commercial endeavors, even tiny scraps of these materials can add up to tons of waste.
The first step is to know your enemy.
Keep Track of Waste
You can’t take steps toward responsible waste management until you’re aware of the extent of the problem.
You can sign up for government or privately offered software to help you keep track of your waste. You could also implement your own manual processes.
The bottom line is you need to figure out how much waste your company’s generating every day. Setting aside a temporary area for commercial waste collection will give you a good idea of this daily output.
Alternatively, ask some of your trusted key employees to keep a spreadsheet of waste generated and report back after a few days.
Ask your employees to collect all the waste products they generate and place them in this one place for a week. The results will surprise you.
Establish a Task Team to Manage Waste Disposal
Once you’ve got a good idea of the problem, it’s easier to envisage solutions.
The number of people should correspond with the size of your business and the extent of waste your operation generates.
You can hire specialist employees for these tasks if preferred. Yet, it’s best to recruit a few members from different departments within your business.
Internal staff members will have a good understanding of where waste’s generated from the outset.
The aim of this green team isn’t to physically collect the waste themselves. Their tasks should include the following:
- Setting up long and short-term waste reduction goals with management
- Gathering information regarding the design and implementation of waste management activities
- Getting management to endorse their efforts and add incentives for employees that actively engage in the program
- Promote the program to their peers and encourage participation
- Reporting their progress to management and fellow employees
In this way, your task team can help ensure that every person within your organization does their bit to reduce and recycle waste. Big results stem from everyone doing small things to improve the situation.
Team Up With Commercial Waste Services
Reducing waste and earmarking it for recycling’s only the first link in the chain. No commercial endeavor has facilities to recycle all their waste onsite. You need to get it to a recycling plant first.
That’s where a reputable commercial waste collection service like wasteindustries.com, Hcienv.com, meridianwaste.com comes to the rescue.
These companies will collect your waste and whisk it off to where it needs to be. They can manage all types of waste recycling, including commercial hazardous waste disposal if needed.
These companies know exactly how best to dispose of every kind of waste in the most environmentally-friendly way possible, so you can rest assured that your waste’s in good hands with them.
Regular Assessments and Improvements
A commercial waste collection service can only work with what they’ve got. If you’re slacking on your waste collection and sorting, they can’t make a major impact on increasing your recycling initiatives.
That’s why it’s important to assess your waste management practices regularly so you can gauge how much recyclable waste’s falling through the cracks.
Once you’ve got the facts, take steps to fine-tune your waste disposal protocols. The goal is to constantly identify and collect increasing amounts of materials for commercial waste removal.
Working Together for a Better Future
Every business generates commercial waste every day and getting rid of it responsibly is an important part of ethical and efficient operational management.
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