Waste prevention and recycling in the office should be high on the priority list for any modern office based business. Never before has environmental policy been so important as we fill our landfills very quickly, and corporations are under pressure to meet ever increasingly stringent targets for recycling passed down from central government through to local authorities.

Reduce, reuse, recycle are the key principles to keep in mind when assessing the impact of waste anywhere, but these words are especially pertinent in the office environment.

A few basic actions can make a lot of difference. Firstly, with your office printers, set double sided printing to default across the office to maximize productivity and minimize paper wastage on essential prints. Instead of purchasing new printer cartridges every time they run out, swap them for refilled cartridges from a reputable supplier to minimize empty cartridges going to landfill. This applies to toner cartridges too, which can be reconditioned and refilled instead of thrown away and new ones purchased.

If your office needs a specific item, perhaps a new projector for a particular event or presentation, considering hiring instead of buying, this applies to many things, always think before requisitioning a purchase over a hire.

If your office has a kitchen, consider a small composer or wormery to deal with organic waste rather than binning it with all the other trash. In the kitchen area, provide separate bins for metals, plastics and cardboard items, and then designate a rota to recycle the items or arrange for a recycling company to handle it.

The biggest waste in modern offices is paper. A totally paperless office is still perhaps some way off, but a series of prevention techniques applied to this medium can reduce the amount of waste your office by a large degree.

Here are a few tips to get you started. Stop storing information on paper, and transfer it to an electronic medium where possible. Instead of circulating memos by paper copies, use a bulletin board, encourage email memos or instigate single copy routing around the office.

Use both sides of any printed or drafted sheets prior to recycling them, have an office box set up to store drafts or failed prints to facilitate this action. Whatever paper you do use, source it from 100% recycled sources in the first place.

A simple but effective tip is to use email rather than paper for sending message. To store messages electronically instead of in a paper file set up specific directories on your server to allow employees to retrieve messages by topic.

Add a line of text to the bottom of your corporate email signatures for every employee that is sent to both external and internal recipients along the lines of; please respect the environment and do not print this email unless it is absolutely necessary. This promotes waste reduction at source, not only of your own company, but also companies you liaise with.

Do not use throwaway cups and dining equipment for staff and visitor refreshments, invest in re-usable mugs and other crockery and silverware.

Finally, make a list over a period of 6 months of all the junk mail you receive and send emails or if there is no email address, physical postcards back to each company requesting politely that they stop sending unwanted mail.

Author Bio: Toronto waste management Company providing fast, friendly, and reliable waste and recycling collection services. Including: Markham recycle, recycling Richmond Hill, waste management Markham, recycling York region, waste management Richmond Hill, Ontario county recycling.

Category: Home Management
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