Garbage: Understanding Where It Goes and Why

Posted on: 2 January 2019

The New Year is an excellent time to set new goals and work towards achieving them. You can also use this motivation to essentially clean up your home or business. If your property is choking under piles of garbage, now is the time to implement a green initiative plan. There are creative ways you can use to minimise how much waste you produce so as to achieve a cleaner and more environmentally friendly home/business.

1. Reduce your paper consumption

Paper forms a large portion of how much waste you produce. In fact, the average employee in a business prints almost 10,000 pages a year. This can easily accumulate to as much as 15% of your company's revenue. By reducing paper consumption, you can save trees and reduce how much you spend on disposing paper waste.

You can cut down on paper usage by printing on both sides of a paper and using electronic copies of documents where possible. Also look into ways of purchasing recycled paper from old newspapers and notebooks. You can work with a skip bin company that recycles used paper as opposed to dumping it in a landfill. Used paper can be recycled into packaging material and other useful products.

2. Reuse and recycle

You probably know how important recycling is. However, recycling is easier said than done. To actually begin this process, you need a solid plan in place. Start by purchasing reusable dishes for your home or office. Avoid single-use paper plates or cups that add to your waste disposal bill.

Plastic bottles are another challenge to keep up with. To minimise plastic bottle usage, opt for drinking cups that can be washed, sanitised, and reused. Also consider purchasing supplies (such as sugar and salt) in larger cases as opposed to small, individual packets.

3. Get a skip bin of the right size

The New Year is a good time to assess how much waste you actually produce and need to dispose of. Be realistic in your assessment and account for an extra capacity you might need. After the assessment, make sure you purchase enough garbage bins and hire a skip of the right size. This will prevent waste from overflowing in your home or business. It also discourages you and your employees from dumping waste in the wrong areas.

4. Know which waste goes where

If you frequently deal with harmful waste such as sharps or organic materials, ensure that you have the necessary infrastructure in place to safely dispose of such items. Invest in new gloves and appropriate bins that can be used to dispose of such materials.