How to encourage recycling in your office

Within this blog post you will discover how to develop and encourage recycling in your office environment. You can save money, become a ‘greener’ company and protect the environment in the long term.

The why: Protects the environment & builds reputation

By recycling paper and cardboard to other office waste your company can help to protect the environment and reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

Recycling has many other positive factors; from reducing waste to landfill, categorising your waste, and making it easier for your cleaning team to sort.

It also builds your business reputation, as you are seen as a company that cares about the wider environment, and gives your office environment a boost in appearance. 

The How: Remove under desk bins

Under desks bins can have a negative impact on recycling, as employees can become lazy and throw everything and anything in their own bins.

One way you can change this bad habit is to remove all under desks bins, and have several bigger bins in the middle of the office. Categorise these bins for recycling and general waste.

This forces (and of course inspires) your employees to get up from their desks, and categorise their own waste into the correct bins.

If some of your employees don’t particularly like this, make sure you point out the positives. Sitting down for too long can be bad for health, which this recycling scheme actively discourages. As a result you will be recycling and improving your health at the same time!

Encourage senior management

To persuade your employees to recycle, encourage your senior management to recycle themselves. If employees see the senior staff going out of their way to recycle, this will spur other employees to recycle too.

Others have to set good examples for others to follow, and if you can be consistent with this, it can become a main ethos within your company. Embedding recycling into your company’s culture is the first step to recycling success.

The How: Communicate to your employees about your new scheme

To make recycling a key policy of your company, your staff and cleaners need to know about it!

You may place recycling points in your office, encourage senior management to recycle themselves, but if you don’t actively communicate to your employees about your new recycling scheme, they may simply ignore it.

To avoid this, send an email newsletter to your employees, place a notice on the noticeboard or even send a letter. This can make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to recycling goals.

Written by Insite Managed Services