Guest post by Gabe Nelson

You may already be concerned with caring for the environment and making sure that your business does not create unnecessary waste. If so,you probably already recycle as well as try to reduce the use of various business assets that might generate garbage. But is what you are doing enough? Could there be more ways to reduce the waste footprint of your business?

If you want to reduce the amount of waste that your business is creating, there are some easy ways to make this goal a reality. You might be surprised at just how easy it is to implement solutions that will make your business environmentally friendly and waste conscious.

If you want to learn more about the ways that you can reduce or recycle the waste that your business produces, then read on!

Ways to Reduce Business Waste

1. Compost

Composting might seem like it can only be done at your home or in a garden, but it can be a viable option for your business as well. Organic wastes are often the largest share of the waste businessstream for any business, but thankfully, they can be turned into valuable material for other uses. There are many businesses that participate in composting programs, particularly in large cities.

If you are interested in participating in this kind of program, there is likely one in your area that you can use for your business’s organic garbage. You will be able to recycle almost all of the food waste that is created each day in your business location for a great price and at great benefit to the environment. Imagine how much less waste you will throw out if you remove food waste from your business’s garbage bins!

metal garbage can with crumpled yellow paper

2. Perform an Office Recycling Audit

One of the best ways to tell where there are opportunities for supply chain improvements in your business is to do a recycling audit. You can track the consumables that you are stocking as well as which items are being used in your business that are recyclable. Making the switch to 100% recyclable items might not be realistic, but there are almost always options to change from products that must be thrown away to ones that can be recycled.

The more items that you are recycling each year in your business, the smaller your waste footprint. You will also want to be sure that you are placing recycling bins throughout the workplace to be sure that people are using the right processes to dispose of these items. Just telling people to recycle is not enough if you do not also provide the necessary bins for easy access.

It’s also important to improve recycling practices to ensure that you can recycle the largest number of products possible. Look for a recycling service that can process a wide range of waste materials. Then, predominantly display signage letting your employees know in detail what types of items can be tossed in the recycling bin.

3. Change Your Packaging

Most of the waste that is created each year is related to packaging. If you can reduce the packaging waste in your business, you will be able to save lots of money and help the environment simultaneously. Pepsico is a great example: they recently announced that they have changed their packaging to be environmentally friendly. This likely also saved them a lot of money each year.

Consider removing single-use containers from your business products and look at changing from plastic to cardboard or paper wherever possible. These kinds of changes can make a big difference in the amount of waste that your business creates each year and can also help you with your bottom line.

4. Avoid Bottled Water to Reduce Waste at Your Company

Plastic bottles are a huge burden on the recycling system and a large component of waste products that end up in oceans. You can reduce a major component of your business’s waste by taking all the bottled water out of your building. You can replace this bottled water with a water cooler or make sure that the tap water in your building is filtered and entirely safe to drink.

Most bottled water is just bottled tap water anyhow, so you will not be delivering special water to your employees just because it is contained in a plastic bottle. Making this change can greatly reduce the waste that is generated by your business each year and can prevent thousands of water bottles from ending up in landfills annually.

white desk with wireless keyboard and monitor

5. Go Paperless

While recycling paper has never been easier, it still takes energy and generates some environmental damage to process large amounts of paper recyclables each year. With the improvements that computers and technology have undergone in the past ten years, going entirely paperless is more realistic than ever before. If you do an audit of the things that your business is still doing on paper, you will probably find that most of these processes can be converted digitally with ease.

Every year enough paper is thrown out to make a 12’ wall from New York to California. Imagine if your business stopped contributing to this statistic. Think of the difference that even a few businesses going paperless could mean for the environment!

Reducing Your Business Waste Can be Easy

When you are thinking about ways that you can make your business more environmentally conscious, the first and most important way of accomplishing this is to reduce waste. Going paperless, composting organic garbage, and trying to streamline recycling and packaging processes can make a big difference in the success of your goal of reducing your company’s impact on the environment.

Reducing waste requires that your entire company adhere to your new rules and plans. You will want to be sure that you explain to everyone in your organization how these new steps and processes will benefit not only them but also the environment. When people are aware that they are making a difference in the health of the planet, they are almost always motivated to take a change of policy seriously.

Reducing business waste can be easier than you think, and when you really commit to making a change, your business can stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution!

Gabe Nelson is a content specialist with over 7 years of experience, currently working with gelrecycling.com. Just out of high school he set off crab fishing on the Bering Sea in Alaska. From there he went back home to finish his college degree at the University of Montana. He has a passion and keen understanding when it comes to recycling waste inside and out. He has written hundreds of content pieces in numerous niches. Currently, he lives in Missouri with his wife and kids.