Offices and other workplaces, especially those supporting large businesses, produce a large supply of waste materials and recycling. If your business wants to reduce its carbon footprint and practice better recycling habits, learn tips for how to recycle responsibly at your business.
Know What Can and Can’t Be Recycled
If you want to practice recycling more responsibly, start by developing an understanding of what you can and can’t recycle. We all know and use daily recyclables such as paper, plastic, and glass, but what about other items you might find around the office? Never recycle plastic bags, even to house larger quantities of recyclables. Electronic devices like computers, discs, and more may contain recyclable parts, but you can’t place these in a traditional recycling bin. Find a local drop-off or pick-up service that accepts these more uncommon recyclables.
Wash and Clean Recyclables
Before you throw away recyclable materials such as plastic and glass, make sure to rinse them under running water first. Failure to thoroughly wash and clean your office’s recyclables can lead to contamination. Recycling contamination occurs when food residue and other debris remain on recyclables after you toss them. Recycling materials that contain residue are harder or may be impossible to sort properly, which could lead to the entire recycling collection going to a landfill site instead of a sorting facility.
Carefully Sort Waste and Recycling
Food residue isn’t the only factor that can contaminate your recycling. Improper sorting of recyclables is another common mistake that businesses make while collecting recyclables. It’s essential to mark recycling bins clearly and separate them. For example, if your customers or employees can’t recognize which receptacle holds waste products and which holds recycling, they may deposit their trash into the wrong bin, contaminating and wasting the recycling. Collection and sorting are some of the first steps of the recycling process, so practice responsible recycling habits at the start by clearly marking your bins.
Now that you know how to recycle more responsibly at your business, you can start training and promoting these positive habits at work. Both your business’s management and employees must know the proper recycling habits. As you learn how to recycle responsibly at your business, be sure to pass this information along to your employees as well in the form of training.