Managing and Controlling Waste in the Workplace

Every workplace produces waste, and if you don’t take steps to manage and regulate it, you can not only run the risk of making people sick but also hurt your company’s reputation by creating an unhygenic environment.

If you are here to learn more about how to control waste in the workplace and improve your workplace hygiene, consider the following essential tips. 

1. Implement Waste Prevention

First of all, if you want to manage your workplace waste, you need to reduce it. One of the methods of waste management is prevention, which involves utilizing less material, storing a product for a longer time, reusing, and employing environmentally friendly materials.

Waste prevention includes the following aspects: 

  • Reduce – By changing the design, manufacturing, purchasing, or usage of materials or goods, businesses may minimize the quantity of waste they create.
  • Reuse – Reusing items can postpone their eventual disposal or recycling.
  • Donate – Organizations can donate goods or supplies to those who need them. 

Not sure how to accomplish this? Here are a few steps you can take to implement waste prevention in your company: 

  • Go nearly paperless by using online tools and resources.
  • Store files digitally. 
  • Consider buying items with little packaging or no packaging at all.
  • Reduce the use of disposable, single-use cups. 
  • Instead of using paper plates, invest in real dishes, utensils, and cups and put them in your kitchen. 

2. Use Garbage Bags

How can you manage and control waste without the right number of garbage bags in your office? The world would become a mess without trash bags. Garbage bags of high quality are one of the most critical components of your sanitation system since you’ll be able to carry trash without tearing the bag. 

Let’s take a look at how important they are:

  • They help to keep your trash can clean. If you don’t put a trash bag inside the can, it will quickly allow the build-up of dirt and decay, which in its turn will cause bad odours all around your office. 
  • Bagging your trash can help to collect the relevant items (e.g. paper or plastic) in one place to give them to recycling in the future. With that in mind, you can buy colour-coded bags to separate trash by type, such as hazardous, non-recyclable, donation, paper, plastic, etc.  
  • It becomes even easier and more secure to put trash in garbage bags so that people can transport them easily from one place to another. Imagine how dirty all the roads would become if you put your trash in loose bags. 
  • Not bagging garbage can cause exposure to germs and bacteria, posing safety issues for your employees’ health. 

Consider buying the right size of trash bags by measuring your waste so as not to squander extra money. 

3. Consider Waste Recycling 

We can use less energy, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute to a healthy environment by employing efficient waste prevention methods and recycling. Recycling conserves energy and keeps waste out of landfills. Once you can’t prevent the waste, you need to take measures to recycle it.

Recycling is all about getting the most out of the resources we have and preserving them for future generations. It’s about protecting the environment, conserving energy, and saving land and raw materials. 

With that in mind, consider the following: 

  • By offering the appropriate recycling containers, you may encourage your employees to act. It’s essential to implement the segmentation of waste. With that in mind, segment your waste by using separate trash bins for plastic, paper, glass, e-waste, etc. 
  • Encourage your staff to pack a litter-less lunch.
  • Fill an organic trash bin with food scraps and add them to your recycling program. Organic waste is a useful resource that may be composted to provide soil nutrients that improve soil quality and minimize erosion. Organic trash collection can help you achieve zero waste by significantly increasing your organization’s diversion rate. 

4. Educate Staff

Put posters and signs above trash bins to let staff know which waste streams must be recycled and which trash bins are appropriate for each type of waste. Encourage your staff to use reusable cups when drinking water, tea, or coffee. Ensure that they don’t just mix the trash. 

Also, raise awareness about how to make the best use of printers. Ask your employees to print double-sided and think carefully before printing so as not to waste extra paper. Encourage everyone in the office to use computers to review documents before printing. This will help cut down on the number of draft copies of papers that need to be printed. 

5. Measure the Waste

You can choose the best waste and recycling collection companies by knowing how much waste your business produces over time and which types of waste you’ll be able to divert from landfills. 

It’s easier to control and track your progress when you’re working on something that can be measured. Begin by keeping track of the types and quantities of waste produced by your company. With that in mind, you can visually inspect and assess the overall amount of workplace waste your company produces each week. It will surely increase safety in the working environment.

Tracking and evaluating the trash levels at your commercial property is critical for waste reduction and management.

Also, conduct a waste audit by providing transparent waste bin bags for a week and observing what people are disposing of.

6. Reduce Packaging

Excessive packaging may quickly increase the quantity of waste generated for each product. When possible, go for low-packaging options and avoid throwaway items like bottled water entirely. Communicate your demands to distributors and suppliers to reduce packing. With office deliveries, there might be a lot of needless packaging that can be minimised with a simple request to reduce packing material. 

Why is Waste Management Important in Workplaces?

Here are some of the benefits your business will get when managing and controlling waste: 

  • Cut down on costs: Proper waste separating and recycling reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, potentially lowering removal expenses. Also, when you reuse products instead of buying new ones, you spend less money. 
  • Keep the office clean: Overflowing trash bins and the potential problems they cause may be avoided with proper waste management. Imagine how much bad odour this waste will also cause, which will make the office seem dirty and discourage employees from working.
  • Protect the environment: Proper waste management can help you protect the environment from hazardous materials and pollution. 
  • Maintain people’s health: It is possible to pollute the air and soil if you do not follow the proper waste management methods. This can harm people’s health and cause respiratory difficulties.
  • Boost Brand Reputation: People will think of your business as an unstable one if they enter the office and smell a bad odour. In particular, when there are overflowing bins, they may get the impression that the entire workplace is filthy. As a result, waste management may help you maintain and even improve your brand’s reputation.

These were some tips on how to manage waste in your workplace and why it’s so important. Implement these tips and opt for Hyex to find the best products for waste management. Good luck!

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