As a business, you may be looking for ways to increase your office recycling efforts. Recycling and reusing are more common place nowadays in general but you could up the stakes even more with these ideas:
Recycling packaging
Cardboard, brown paper, you name it… it seems that the things we order for the office come wrapped in all kinds of materials.
But what can you do about it?
- Most cardboard, brown paper etc. can be recycled at the kerbside or with your office recycling contractor. Unfortunately, polystyrene is not widely recycled here in the UK or abroad.
- Contact suppliers to lobby for change to more environmentally friendly and recyclable packaging materials, as well as using less.
Office supplies
No matter how hard we try, it seems that drawers and cupboards stuffed full of office supplies that don’t seem to get used. Worse still, office supplies like paper clips seem to get dropped into the bin without a second thought.
The life of a paper clip is a long one and so rather than wasting them, have a re-use area of the office where paper clips, treasury tags and other pieces of stationery can be re-used by colleagues.
Re-use office paper clips
Electrical equipment
From business mobile phone handsets to desktop telephones, to PCs, laptops and tablets, the gadgets that we have in the office are many and varied.
And when it comes to recycling, they all have value. Deep inside electrical gadgets are smaller components that can be reused, as well as components that can be ‘melted down’ to be used in other ways.
Contact your local council who may be able to help with the recycling of such items or search for non-profit organisations who will take these items for free, break them down into component parts and re-used in many different ways.
Ink and toner cartridges
You may have made great strides in reducing paper waste from your office but that still leaves the empty ink or toner cartridges to deal with.
In the vast majority of cases, the empty, plastic toner and ink cartridge cassettes can be recycled.
In most cases, they will be re-charged – more toner or powder injected into the empty cassettes, re-sealed and then re-set – for use in the office, a process that can be repeated several times. Easier on the office supplies budget too, this is one sure-fire way of upping your office recycling rates.
When the plastic cassette is too worn to refill, the cartridges is dismantled and the plastic re-used to make other plastic objects. Contact us about our ink and toner cartridge recycling system.
The staff lunches!
The current environmental concerns relating to one-use plastic is something we have all witnessed. From ocean waves full of plastic remnants to sea creatures caught in plastic waste, many of us are taking strides not to buy and throw away plastic bottles.
Office recycling is about the consumables we use but also encouraging staff to make eco-friendly choices. But supplying recycling facilities in the canteen or kitchen is something every business should be doing.
It is up to everyone to contribute to cutting down on the waste we contribute to the environment and office recycling, even if you just work in an office and don’t manage it, is something we can all get involved in.
Leave A Comment