Besides boasting the largest economy, strongest military, and the world’s biggest basketball league, studies show that the United States also produces a lot of waste! If the average American produces approximately 4 pounds of waste each day, you can imagine how much waste your business creates if they spend at least 6 hours at work per day!
Reducing waste is vital to saving the environment and also reducing costs. So, how can you ensure your business achieves this? Here are a few ideas.
Go Paperless
Going paperless is the future of business, and your business shouldn’t be left behind. Businesses use paper all the time. This means that a lot of its waste is from countless used sheets of paper. Adopting paperless technologies can help save money and improve efficiency. It also helps save on money that would have otherwise to pay for storage and printing needs. Most importantly, it reduces waste. Businesses would no longer need to create excess waste throwing out bulks of paper.
Perform a Waste Audit
Perform a waste audit by looking around your facility and identify habits and processes that may be generating significant amounts of waste. Suppose you work in an agricultural or food production business. In that case, performing a waste audit would help you identify problems concerning waste and find solutions to them. For example, you can consider grain processing solutions like Scherer to enhance your process and eliminate waste.
Through your waste audits, you may also identify ways of dealing with recyclable and compostable waste. You could implement recycle bins to reduce waste and save the environment effectively. Compost bins are also a great way of managing waste created from food. You should encourage workers to use these bins so the business can benefit from them.
Eliminate Single-Use Eating Utensils
Another way to reduce waste at the workplace is by discouraging disposable eating utensils such as cups, plates, and cutlery. Using disposable utensils may seem like a good idea as they eliminate the time used to clean up. However, it increases cost- as you would constantly have to buy new ones. It also produces a lot of waste! It is advisable to invest in reusable eating utensils to cut costs and reduce waste. You can implement a “use it, wash it policy” to keep the space neat and avoid producing more waste.
Measure Your Business Waste
It is almost impossible to manage what you can’t measure. Collating your business waste information helps you appreciate the amount of waste you produce within a particular period. It can be helpful to make your haulier weigh your waste to calculate the amount each day per person. Make your results tangible by showing them to everybody and challenging them to reduce them. You can make this more fun by making it a challenge between your working teams or departments. You might also want to check other waste reduction models to help you calculate your greenhouse gas emissions.
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