With every passing year, humanity’s influence on the Earth and the natural environment become ever more prevalent, with record temperatures in the UK seen already this year, proving the time really has come to act. As part of a business or industry, sustainability has never been a more important or pressing issue across all your operations, with eco-friendly alternatives to key practices more popular than ever.
In this helpful article, we provide a complete guide to sustainable waste management, offering essential methods for creating a sustainable waste management plan for your business.
Sustainable Waste Management | Creating A Plan For Business
One such way in which a business can reduce their environmental impact is through the implementation of a sustainable waste management plan, helping to reduce your company’s collective impact on the natural Earth. Below, we outline three essential ways in which you can introduce simple but effective measures to help alleviate your waste, by creating a sustainable waste management plan for your business.
Audit & Analysis
In order to understand the cause of your waste and implement strategies to manage this accordingly, you must first understand how much waste you are creating. This requires strict auditing and analysis through a full site survey that aims to identify areas of improvement.
Sustainability Goals
Setting targets for achievements is common in any workplace, and can also be used effectively when it comes to your waste management. Set ambitious, but realistic goals, both in the long and short term for sustainability that aim to reduce your waste on-site.
Introduce A Green Team
If you’re looking to introduce sustainable waste management into your business, why not include your own employees in the conversation? Encourage your employees to offer their own perspectives and opinions on what strategies your business could implement and how they will be carried out. This is known as a ‘Green Team’, typically a group of volunteer employees from each department of your organisation that offer support and suggestions for improvement on behalf of their workers, much like a union representative.
Sustainable Waste Management | Reducing Corporate Waste
Generally speaking, there are three main ways in which your business can create a sustainable waste management plan and reduce the levels of waste that are reaching landfill; Prevent, Reuse and Recycle.
As part of key government regulations, there is now an effective guideline for sustainable waste management known as the ‘waste hierarchy, to provide businesses with a framework to help minimise waste as part of your company’s duty of care. Below, we analyse each stage in greater detail:
Prevent
A particularly effective and important method of reducing your commercial waste is by implementing simple prevention techniques which can be utilised across all aspects of your business. Prevention tips could include:
- Reduce Raw Materials At The Production Stage
- Shift Away From Hazardous Materials
- Introduce Reusable Products
- Avoid Single-Use Products
- Promote Paperless Practices
Prevention is an effective and simple measure that can be easily carried out at the source. Rethink your current practices and try to prevent the use of products that are unsustainable.
Re-use
Another key method for preventing waste and implementing an effective and sustainable waste disposal plan for your business is through re-using practices. If your waste can find a new application or be used elsewhere, it should be assessed for future use. This can involve inspecting whether the entire item is fit for purpose or if certain components can be used. These items will then be cleaned, refurbished and reused. Tips for re-using include:
- Avoid single-use products
- Refill, reuse and recycle products wherever possible
- Never Use Packaging Once
- Make Careful Considerations About What’s Thrown Away
- Innovate! Create New Items From Old Materials
- Donate To Charity, Upcycling, Reselling, etc.
In the current climate, single-use products are no longer a sustainable way of living, with greater importance placed on reusable products, such as water bottles, upcycling our clothes and changing our fashion habits and the creation of new furniture and products from old materials.
Recycle
The process of transforming waste products into new materials, substances or products, recycling is generally a practice used for paper, cardboard, glass and some metals to alleviate the environmental impact of using raw materials. Recycling tips include:
- Separate All Waste Accordingly
- Use Recycled Materials In The First Instance
- Clean Your Waste
- Know What Can Be Recycled
Recycling is one of the most common and simple measures we can use to reduce our waste, helping to ensure materials that otherwise would be disposed of are reused multiple times.
Why Is Sustainable Waste Management Important?
As suggested, sustainable waste management is vital in reducing our waste helping to alleviate the strain we’re placing on our natural Earth, atmosphere and Ozone layer. Below, we outline key reasons why suitable waste management can prove beneficial for both your individual business and for our collective environment.
Environmental Benefits
Put simply; implementing a sustainable waste management plan for your business will significantly reduce your negative impact on the environment. Make no mistake, the amount of waste we produce across the globe every single day is seismic and unsustainable, which is exactly why eco-friendly waste disposal is so important for all of us. The time has come to shift our mentality and disposal habits when it comes to waste management, in order to ensure our environment remains intact for future generations.
Through the implementation of effective waste disposal management for your business, you can play a major role in the restoration of our natural environment, contributing to the following:
- Cleaner Air
- Clean & Plentiful Water
- Thriving Plants & Wildlife
- Reduced Risk Of Extreme Environmental Events, (Floods, Droughts, Hurricanes, etc)
- Enhanced Natural Beauty
- Better Use Of Eco-Friendly Resources/Resource Efficiency
- Waste Minimisation
- Biosecurity Enhancement
- Sustainable Land Management
Government Compliance
With more emphasis on our environmental impact than ever, the UK Government has placed eco-friendly waste management and appropriate disposal methods at the forefront of their commitments and objectives moving forward. In recent years, strict regulations have been further introduced to clarify how we dispose of our waste, where it goes and what becomes of it in order to reduce, reuse and recycle more of our waste, alongside implementing safe, more effective disposal waste techniques.
As part of the Government’s 25-Year Environment Plan, a policy paper designed to set out what will be done to improve the environment over the next quarter of a century. As part of the plan, the UK Government have set out the following list of aims and incentives they wish to achieve by 2050:
- Eliminate All Food Waste By 2030
- Eliminate All Avoidable Plastic Wastes
- Eliminate All Avoidable Waste By 2050
- Double Resource Productivity By 2050
- Pivot Towards Reusable, Recyclable, Compostable Plastic Packaging By 2025
- Pollution Pays Principle: Focus On Environmental Impact Over Size Or Weight
Part of this plan focuses heavily on the transformation of the waste industry, with the intention of creating a sustainable future for all of us. The government have set out the following primary objectives to reduce waste disposal and our environmental impact:
- Minimise Waste Production
- Minimise Environmental Impacts Of Waste
- Derive Greatest Value From All Resources
Brand Competitiveness
At Batesy Skip Hire Ltd, we recognise how important effective and proper waste disposal is to our customers, with more consumers than ever considering the environmental ethics with companies they share close relationships with#. Implementing sustainable waste disposal practices is fundamental to your competitiveness in an increasingly eco-conscious society, playing a determining factor in whether your company may be awarded contracts or not. This is why we provide an eco-friendly waste transfer station and waste recycling centre alongside our skip hire services in Belfast.
Batesy Skip Hire Ltd – Reliable Skip Hire & Waste Management Specialists For The Belfast Area
At Batesy Skip Hire Ltd, we’re skip hire and waste management experts, with over 600 skips and containers for all your daily waste disposal needs, we’re the number one choice for efficient waste removal services across the Great Belfast Area. Providing skip hire and an eco-friendly waste recycling and waste transfer station, we aim to recycle up to 95% of all the waste we manage.
Available for industrial, public, commercial and domestic use, our skip hire and waste management services are a cost-effective way of collecting and recycling waste, as part of our commitment to conserving and protecting the natural environment. Our waste removal service aims to recycle 95% of all the waste we manage on our site and do our best to be as eco-friendly as possible.
If you’re searching for a ‘waste transfer station near me’ in Belfast that does its bit for the environment, look no further than Batesy Skip Hire. Get in touch today.
