Are you looking for unique ways to help your business adopt more environmentally friendly habits? There are many ways to promote a greener business model, such as supplying reusable materials, but many businesses know and practice these already. If you’re looking for out-of-the-box ways to reduce office waste, keep reading to find out more.
Carry Out Composting
Composting is a fantastic way to reduce substantial amounts of waste in an office space. If your office has a break room or lunchroom, encourage employees to dispose of food waste in a composting bin instead of the trash. You can even collect your office’s paper scraps for composting as well. One benefit of a cross-cut paper shredder for your office is that it creates paper scraps that are the perfect size for composting methods. As you can see, there are plenty of materials around the office that you can start composting.
Start an “Upcycling” Culture
Before you trash your office supplies to upgrade to new ones, you should start an “upcycling” station with these old supplies. An upcycling station is a place where you can go when your employees need supplies. It can be wasteful to constantly buy brand-new supplies for your office when you have perfectly good materials stored away. Creating a station to store and reuse these items will help you avoid wastefulness and unnecessary costs in the future.
Recycle Electronics
Find a place to recycle electronics that you can’t upcycle because they’re too old or completely broken. Many businesses automatically assume that they can’t recycle these materials and throw them in the trash, but this is a waste of materials. Many recycling centers accept old or broken electronics to recycle their parts or ship them off to the appropriate recycling plants. Some electronics stores will even accept old electronics, so the odds are that your area supports electronics recycling.
Print Double-Sided Documents
One of the simplest ways to reduce office waste is to change your printer settings. Many companies don’t realize that printing on both sides of each paper sheet can save them loads of resources and prevent unnecessary waste. Paper products are among the most wasted materials, so save all the paper you can by printing double-sided sheets. You can also use any single-sided sheets you have as note-taking paper when you finish using them. This will help you get more use out of your paper products.
Try adopting some of these out-of-the-box ways to reduce office waste in your own business. These tips are unique but still accessible for many companies that want to become more environmentally friendly.