Business waste collections may not be at the top of your list of priorities for your business but it is in fact a service and decision that can impact your company’s ethos, your employees’ satisfaction and the money you spend.
Brand reputation
With the environment increasingly being at the forefront of the consumers’ mind letting your customers know that you are a zero waste to landfill operation is not only a factor that’s important to you but also to your customers.
Josh Brodie, owner at Off The Ground Coffee, said: “Like many other forward thinking businesses, reducing our overall impact on the environment is one of our long term priorities.
“It's important for our customers to see that we take our environmental sustainability seriously. As a business, we are committed to having a net positive impact on the world around us and mitigating and offsetting our environmental impact is a big part of that.
“Choosing J&B is an easy way to mitigate our environmental impact by making sure the waste we produce isn't shoved into the ground.
“It's particularly helpful that J&B are price competitive with other waste disposal companies, meaning taking that first step is not as costly or difficult as you might think.”
J&B Recycling provides zero waste to landfill solutions to its recycling customers who in turn market this ethos to their ethically-conscious consumers.
Going with a local waste management company could also help your company to save money and improve your ties in the local area with local businesses.
Employees
According Ipsos MORI/King’s College London polling, February 2018, 41% of people are very concerned about plastic pollution.
If your business makes steps towards helping this concern within the workplace, where recycling figures are usually lower than at home, this will encourage employee satisfaction and education within your workplace.
This doesn’t have to just be providing facilities for recycling but can also include internal communications; perhaps a recycling quiz or some humorous awards to encourage recycling and employee morale.
Take a look at this quiz we created for our employees to benefit our recycling.
Cost
Although it may not seem like your business’s waste collection is a big outgoing cost the implications could be a lot worse if it is handled incorrectly.
Many organisations underestimate how much waste costs them; it could be as high as 4% of turnover. The true cost of waste isn’t limited to the charges for disposal. It also includes wasted raw materials, energy and labour, which can be between five and 20 times more than the cost of disposal.
There are various responsibilities for a company to be compliant and dispose of its waste correctly, for example the Environmental Agency requires Duty of Care Controlled Waste Transfer Notes to be in place for all waste transfer and if legislation is not followed, especially in the case of fly tipping, this could result in big fines and more overall costs.
Mark Penny, Commercial Manager at J&B Recycling, said: “Sometimes a waste collection service may be cheap, but if the supplier you are using is not disposing of your waste correctly and your waste is fly tipped it could be traced back to you and you’re the person who could end up being prosecuted and face a hefty fine.”
If your company produces a lot of heavy waste you may find yourselves paying excess weight charges. Not what you want right?
This could be down to having things like heavy food waste or glass in your general bin. A better and more environmentally friendly option is to have a food waste or recycling bin if you have the room. This will result in making your waste more sustainable and make excess weight charges very unlikely, saving your company money.
It is better and cheaper to have both a general waste and recycling bin instead of just a general waste bin(s). If you don't have the space for this then the next best solution is to ensure that your general waste is processed so that any residue goes for energy from waste recovery.
The more waste you have, the more money you’ll save and recycling works out cheaper to empty than general waste. It is a win, win.
So, will business waste collection improve your company’s sustainability?
You can find out more about commercial waste collection services here.
For an instant quote, call our team on
01429 272810