How to Promote Recycling in the Office

Recycling in an office is an important element of the global green drive. Thoughts quickly turn to paper waste when recycling at work is the topic on the table. Offices, however, generate a mix of paper and packaging, electronics, furniture, consumables (such as printer cartridges), and food waste, with an office worker producing about 2 kg of waste daily. Roughly 70% of this can be recycled, yet tonnes still end up at landfills. Notably, it takes much less energy to recycle than to produce paper.

Your office recycling initiatives depend on the nature of your operations. Strategies in corporate, commercial and industrial offices (such as your warehouses and construction sites) require bespoke tweaks to be effective. This article explores how to implement a recycling programme at work and takes you through the step-by-step process for a successful recycling strategy. Read on to find out how to promote recycling in the workplace.

1. Assess your office’s current waste management practices

Similarly to any other business management strategy, recycling in the office starts with an assessment. Conduct an audit to determine how much and what types of waste your office generates. The following steps should be taken:

1. Identify the types of waste you produce in your business. This could include textile waste, e-waste and plastic waste depending on your company. 
2. Analyse your waste over a given timeframe, such as a week. Throughout this week, pay attention to the volume of waste produced and how often your bins are emptied.
3. After this time period, sort through and separate your waste. Take note of any items that have been improperly disposed of. 
4. Once you have sorted all the waste, you can analyse your data to determine how much waste you produce on average each week and any improvements you can make in your recycling practices. Use this to inform any additional supplies you need, such as extra bins or signage. 

Once you pinpoint these specifics, you can devise strategies and goals for your recycling drives. This data informs how many and which kinds of recycling bins you need, where to place them, and who to appoint for collection and recycling. An effective audit addresses each area in the office, including the bathrooms and staff kitchens.

2. Set clear recycling goals

Recycling goals keep your programme on track and identify gaps for improvement. Make your goals specific, measurable and achievable. For example, ask yourself how much paper waste your office generates and by how much you want to cut this every week, month and year. How can you measure your successes in kilograms or other volume metrics? Are your goals realistic? For example, it does not make sense to go from an all-paper to a no-paper environment overnight.

All your goals should tie into the universal mission of becoming carbon neutral. To achieve this, we recommend tangible targets such as:

• Recycling versus sending waste to the landfill. You can easily measure this in kilograms via your recycle bins and collection contractors.
• Processing your waste through the right recycling streams. Encourage employees not to discard items in the wrong bins, and make a point of keeping food waste separate from your dry recyclables (such as paper, card and glass).
• Eliminating single-use items, especially plastics, where possible.

3. Provide easily accessible recycling facilities

Each setup has its unique recycling needs. Your recycling facilities must meet these requirements. Depending on your business, you may need recycling bins for paper and card, plastics, metals, glass, food and other items such as small electronics. Place your recycling bins in visible and easy-to-access locations. Also, you may want to consider removing individual desk bins to encourage employees to use the recycling bins.

It is crucial to consider your company’s confidentiality and intellectual property when providing recycling facilities. Confidential waste bins, containers and receptacles ensure that your sensitive items do not end up in the wrong hands.

4. Educate employees

Educating employees on the importance of recycling requires more than formal training (though this should be a mandatory fixture in your office recycling strategy). You can do several things to motivate your employees on a daily basis.

Put up posters on the importance and impact of recycling. Use signage to reinforce your company’s commitment to recycling. Address the specifics of your office’s recyclable waste during training – such as how to discard small electronics and batteries. Consider establishing a green team or a sustainability committee to drive recycling efforts. 

5. Incentivise recycling efforts

Reward conscientious and continued recycling efforts. You can link these incentives to your company’s recycling goals. 

Make it fun by creating inter-departmental recycling competitions and make the prizes worth the effort. This could also be individual challenges such as not using takeaway coffee cups or plastic bottles for a week. Depending on your activities, this could be anything from paid time off to lunches and weekend getaways. This helps to get staff engaged in communicating about recycling while raising awareness about the waste they produce. 

6. Monitor and adjust the recycling programme

As with any other business strategy, you need to regularly review your office recycling programme. Monitor goal achievement, identify problem zones and consider the feedback from employees. This helps you keep your recycling strategy effective. Remember to also consider any legislative changes and explore government grants for initiatives.

How to set up a policy for recycling in the workplace

A formal recycling policy document for your business adds official weight to the drive. Start by specifying the purpose, scope and procedures of your recycling programme. Then, document and integrate each of the five steps discussed above and use it as the framework to establish your recycling policy. When developing this policy, pay special attention to the:

• Types of materials you can recycle and the specific receptacles you need for separate collection.
• Responsibilities of employees regarding recycling and what procedures they must follow to correctly dispose of and segregate waste.
• Waste management partners you need in your drive. For example, do you have someone who can handle and recycle your confidential information without compromising your company? What about a shredding and recycling partner for paper and card waste?
• Review dates for your recycling processes.

How do office paper recycling services work?

Office recycling is a multi-tiered process that involves much more than binning items in designated containers. Engaging a recycling partner to help with policy development, setting up recycling stations and collecting the recyclables is key to your office’s recycling success. It is essential that your choice of recycling partner is reliable and recycles your waste correctly and responsibly.