How to Boost your Office Recycling Programme

It is estimated that waste typically costs companies 4.5% of their turnover*, so a continual established workplace recycling programme with the right office recycling bins is essential today and advantageous in the long term.

Refreshing your workplace recycling scheme is an effective way to keep employees involved with recycling, while providing the perfect opportunity to review your current waste management contract.

Simply introducing a new recycling stream or creating modern recycling stations for the different types of waste in the office, can also be instrumental in changing and supporting your employees recycling habits at home and in the wider community too.

What recyclable waste is your office producing today?

Read tips on how to boost your office recycling programme here:

1. Review your waste audit.

• Identify what, where and how much recyclable and non-recyclable waste is generated within the company, then once the programme is running you have some baseline information to compare against and to help assess your financial savings.


• Need help with your audit? We offer free, no obligation advice and assistance, whereby a member of our team is available to visit you on site to help assess your requirements. Request your free waste management audit here.

2. Choose the right office recycling bins.

• Once you have identified the types and quantities of waste your company is producing, you can select office bins for the appropriate streams and collection capacities you need.


• Did you know? On average 60-80% of office waste is paper.***


• There are specially designed containers available for each of the main types of recyclable office waste including paper, mixed waste and plastic bottles.


• Duo, Triple and Quad recycling stations offer multi-stream recycling in one space saving unit. Solutions such as the Nexus® 100 Duo Recycling Bin or the Electra™ 170 Quad Recycling Bin.


• You may have the basics, but adding more specific containers may extend your recycling, for example lockable, confidential paper waste bins and cup recycling stations for disposable coffee cups. Read our Guide to Coffee Cup Recycling for more information.


• Clear signage and graphics on the containers are also advised to let your employees know what can and cannot be recycled. This helps to minimise cross-contamination, while serving to promote your programme at the same time.

3. Consider the location of the recycling containers.

• Your audit will have also assisted in understanding the most appropriate and accessible indoor and outdoor locations for your recycling containers. A well-placed container will ensure maximum usage and increased recycling, with less chance of contamination.
  
  
• If bins in a specific location haven’t performed, try them out in a new location to see if there’s an improvement.
  
  

4. Coordination, Involvement and Communication.

• The recycling coordinator or an Eco-team responsible for championing the scheme need to stay on top of managing the communication, collecting feedback and measuring the effectiveness as a regular task to maintain the programme’s success and keep staff involved.
  
  
• Be sure to recognise and reward individual employees who make noteworthy contributions to provide encouragement and incentive to keep participating.
  
  

5. Regularly reinforce the office recycling programme.

• After having a successful launch, the main challenge is to keep your staff recycling.
  
  
• Regularly advertise your scheme internally by various communication channels such as emails, information boards, staff websites and social media.
  
  

6. Provide transparency of your goals.

• Frequently share your company's goals for the programme with employees. Helping them understand the 'why?' will make them more likely to support you and recycle.
  
  
• When you reach a goal, make sure you share the success!

7. Continual improvement.

• Keep on track by checking in regularly and keeping records for comparisons so you can monitor how effective the programme is and how it is benefitting your workplace.
  
  
• If it starts slipping, offer targets to work towards, let staff know statistics on improvements, and add more initiatives, for example, staff could win a free prize for the highest amount they recycle each week to push the scheme forward.