Monitoring recycling services in your Transport and Storage business
Making improvements to recycling services in the Transport and Storage sector
As you start to recycle more, the amount of general waste you produce should also reduce. This means you should be able to reduce your number of general waste containers or have them emptied less often. This could save you money!
If your business has seasonal fluctuations, you may need to make changes to your service to suit your needs at these times. Talk to your as soon as you can to find out whether they can make the changes you need.
You can use the feedback you’ve received from both your waste provider and employees to help hone your internal communications on recycling. For example, explaining to staff how to avoid recycling might mean improving signage, offering refresher training or explaining the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ in an email to all staff.
Use feedback from customers or passengers to address issues they’ve raised, explaining the actions you’ll take to address these. If you have them, use customer noticeboards or signage at information points to share the successes and achievements you’ve gained by customers correctly using the recycling points you’ve provided.
Always keep communication positive, sharing successes and achievements via employee newsletters, at team meetings or via posters in staff rest or break areas. Remember to let your senior management, external partners and customers know, too – this will motivate everyone to continue recycling and encourage them to look for further opportunities for improvement!
What next?
Use review waste audits to identify other types of waste your organisation, tenants or concessionaires produce that you don’t currently recycle. Can you spot any opportunities to switch to less wasteful products, or refillable ones, so that you can stop waste being created in the first place, as we saw in the waste hierarchy?
You could also investigate options to recycle a wider range of materials that you’re currently throwing away. This might include increasing the number of drinking water fountains to encourage customers or employees to use reusable bottles, reducing the availability of single-use items people can buy in catering outlets, or talking to your workwear or supplier to find out whether they offer a take-back service for old uniforms or PPE.
Monitoring your service is not part of the regulations, however, it is highly recommended to make sure that your waste collection service is working well and is the most cost effective.