How to make an effective waste program?

Waste and recycling programs are typically an afterthought for most businesses. Waste management companies will leave it to the business’ discretion with how they educate and engage their staff. This happens for 2 reasons. Firstly, waste that is put in the wrong bin (in other words contaminated), increases the amount haulers can charge for its collection.  It is additional margin that can be made, when you factor in things like contamination fees, pick-up fees etc. This is to cover the loss of having to sort the business’ waste for them, so they can subsequently resell in recycled material markets. Secondly, is that waste and recycling programs take time. It requires a dedicated staff member to operate the program, taking them away from other activities within the business. With many stakeholders to deal with (from branding, to facilities to sustainability), the barriers to rolling out an effective program become stonewalled. For waste haulers, it is not an effective use of their time to optimize any business’ recycling programs.

This begs the question, what kind of system do we live in? The economic incentives for the companies who handle the trash is not aligned with the betterment of the planet. Surely, we should be getting a consistent, at-source-separated waste stream, that will maximize the likelihood of waste actually getting recycled? In fact, multiple studies have shown that at-source separation is the best way to reduce contaminated waste and increase the quality of post-recycled materials. So why don’t businesses adopt this?

This is where the problem becomes multi-faceted. The barriers to multi-stream recycling within organizations includes:

1. Infrastructure - Businesses just don’t have the bins or systems in place to accommodate multiple streams of waste. In densely populated areas, they may just not have the floor space to accommodate many bins.
2. Budget - Waste and recycling is very low on the priority list for businesses, so it is a fixed cost that comes in and seldom moves. It grows each year, but is typically handled by one stakeholder. This is mainly due to the fact that businesses don’t know what to do with their waste. Until now, there has been no insight into the waste they produce.
3. Goals - Many businesses have fantastic Net Zero goals across their operations. However, waste and recycling makes up a small percentage of the overall emissions of the business (think of an airliner, where more than 70% of their emissions comes from aviation fuel. Recycling is low on their list).
4. Waste to Energy (Incineration)- We interface with businesses frequently on this topic. Zero-waste-to-landfill has been coined by many waste companies as a way to get more clients with ambitious net zero goals. But typically, this includes the idea that the waste can be burned for energy, and that counts as ‘diverted from landfill’. While technically true, when we play that out on a long enough time horizon, it assumes an infinite consumption cycle on a finite planet. Once it is burned, it is gone forever. By definition, it goes against the idea of circularity, the ZWIA definition of zero-waste, and some modern policies where incineration does not count as recycling.

All of these obstacles are valid, but not insurmountable. Now the barriers to rolling out effective waste and recycling programs have been identified, let’s see how to roll out an effective one.

Like many of these Sustainability initiatives, there has to be an internal battle to find the commercial business case, to make it a worthy investment. Targeting just the environmental and social factors, only gets you so far. The economics need to make sense. What is interesting with waste, and where it is unique, is that waste is ultimately a resource (or even, a commodity). The moment we, as a society, start treating it like that, we unlock the potential in creating a coherent and justifiable business case that makes inaction seem ignorant.

A saying we love to say at Scrapp - what gets managed, gets measured. This is paramount to taking the first step you are going to take to roll out an effective recycling program. Once you have this understanding, you can begin to optimize:

1. Bin locations - Identifying the position of the bins around the office to maximize high quality, high volume waste.
2. Number of waste streams - Ensuring the right number of waste streams are available for your business, to be sure you are separating high value materials from the waste stream.
3. Proper signage - Use appropriate signage, such as Scrapp’s WRAP compliant posters, to clearly identify what was goes into what bin.
4. Educational campaigns - Making targeting educational campaigns that factor in the specific waste types your organization interacts with on a daily basis, is paramount to ensuring members engage with your waste program effectively. Carry out an annual waste audit to identify common waste types within your organization. This is so you can ensure your education campaigns are aligned with the waste types your teams are interacting with on a daily basis.
5. Incentive programs - Introducing rewards and gamifying the user experience can make correct recycling a fun experience for users that brings them back for more.
6. Track your supplier footprint - Knowing what is coming into your business is a great way of designing for zero-waste, alleviating the burden for your teams to get it right by the bin. Profiling suppliers based on the packaging and materials they bring into your business, means you can begin opting for suppliers that are more suitable for your waste programs, where there are more suitable end-of-life options for their products.

These all sound great, and have been proven to move the needle for businesses looking to move closer to their zero-waste goals. But where is the economic value for the business that adopts it? Why should they make these changes? There are number of benefits that can be seen below. It is hard to quantify as it does depend business-by-business, but hopefully this article has provided some ideas that you can take forward with your teams:

1. Right size bins to ensure you are not overpaying on your collections
2. Increase the value of post-recycled materials with proper separation of materials
3. Save money on contamination and handling fees from your waste service provider
4. Gain insight to negotiate better contract terms with your waste service provider
5. Reduce the amount time your staff spend on managing your waste programs

So there you have it. Tangible steps to make an effective recycling program and why it is important. Feel free to use these benefits and added value to empower the right decision-making when it comes to your business’ waste and recycling programs. Moving to a circular economy requires engagement from stakeholders across the board. Speaking their language is the first step. In the famous words of David Attenborough: “Saving our planet is now a communications challenge”.

Using Scrapp's system, it is easy to quantify how this translates to your business. So do check out a demo of our software to learn how, or contact us to book in time with the team.

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