Businesses generate a lot of waste, including document shredding, washroom waste such as nappies and sanitary products, hazardous waste like batteries and chemical solvents, food waste such as fruit peels and meat bones, packaging waste from everyday office supplies, and glass waste, among many others. All these must be appropriately managed and disposed of to maintain a clean and healthy workplace. Below are a few tips on proper waste management and disposal for businesses:
- Partner With Rubbish Removal Companies
Having a waste management partner is very crucial for your business. They’re the ones you’ll task with transporting any waste you generate away from your business premises before they pile up and become unsightly. Make a point of choosing a company near your offices to make the waste collection process quick and budget-friendly. For instance, if your business is in Sydney, you may want to work with local companies such as www.samedayrubbishremoval.com.au/ or other similar ones.
It’d help if the company you choose commits to removing rubbish from your offices daily. That’s especially useful if you generate voluminous waste, as you wouldn’t want it to pile up beyond a day. Also, ensure that the firm can handle the specific type of waste that your business produces.
- Carry Out A Waste Audit
You can’t manage your business waste properly if you don’t have detailed information on its characteristics. That’s why you need to perform a waste audit as soon as possible. By definition, a waste audit is a calculated and studious process used to define the type and amount of waste produced by a particular business.
You’ll need two or three people for the waste audit team. Select a date for them to do a thorough walk-through around your facility. During this survey, they’ll carefully inspect the primary waste generation points. They can then classify the wastes as either recyclable, trash, or reusable. These details will help in setting proper waste management procedures for your business.
- Set Smart Goals
It’s good to set goals, as they’ll push you to work harder towards achieving something. For waste management, you can have goals such as:
- To reduce the volumes of waste generated by 20%
- To comply with all government regulations regarding waste management and disposal in the next three months
- To achieve perfect segregation of waste within a month
- To recycle 70% of all waste generated
- Create Protocols For Waste Management
Once you get enough information from the waste audit, you can propose standard guidelines for waste management in your company. For example, you can specify how many trash bins you need to set around your premises and the exact type of waste that should go into each one of them. You can also appropriately mark the trash bins in a format that every worker in your business will understand.
As part of the waste management action plan, you should also detail how your team members should protect themselves while handling the business waste. This will probably include a list of typical personal protective equipment they should use. In addition, describe the conventional flow of trash from the production point to the area where it’ll be loaded onto vans for transport to recycling centers and landfills.
- Train Your Staff
The protocols exemplified above won’t do any good if your workers aren’t up to speed with them. They must understand every bit of it, and most importantly, feel engaged in the whole process. That’s where training them comes in.
It doesn’t end with an explanation of the technical terms. You must also sensitize them on the need to follow the correct waste management procedures. If they feel they are part of the overall plans, they’re more likely to do what’s required of them without undue pushing from you as the manager.
- Assess Your Waste Management System Regularly
It’s also critical to evaluate the performance of your waste management and disposal strategies against predefined goals. However, doing this will let you know whether or not the protocols you put in place are working. For any guideline that doesn’t seem to work, you must dig deeper to know the reason for the failure and develop practical solutions.
And where your workers have excelled, consider giving them verbal praise or rewards. This keeps them motivated to continue following the waste management guidelines in your firm.
Conclusion
Your business can manage and dispose of its waste properly. The above tips are an excellent starting point. Following them will make your workplace healthy and clean, ensure your business complies with government regulations, and reduce the impact on the environment. For best results, you’d want to work with industry professionals, such as rubbish removal companies, waste auditors, and occupation health and safety trainers.
