How to Establish a Workable Company Recycling Program

You and your management team have decided it is time for the company you own to do a better job of recycling. You have talked things over with employees and everyone agrees that a workable recycling program would be a good thing. Great. Now what?

Deciding to establish a company recycling program is a good start. But now you need to actually implement the program. That’s where the proverbial rubber meets the road. As with anything else in business, the main thing is to think things through.

Decide What You Want to Recycle

The place to start is deciding what you actually want to recycle. Some companies go full bore right from the start. Others begin by choosing one or two materials, getting them nailed down, and then expanding. Here are some suggestions:

• Office paper
• Bottles and cans
• Breakroom plastics.

If your company deals in any type of industrial plastic, you might be able to recycle it just by contacting a company like Seraphim Plastics. We and our competitors buy a variety of industrial plastic waste and turn it into regrind.

Look for Residential Plastic Recyclers, not Industrial Plastic Recyclers

Once you decide what you want to recycle, start looking around for recyclers. We have already discussed recycling industrial scrap plastic, but what about breakroom plastics, paper, etc.?

It is possible that your local trash hauler can already take what you want to recycle. However, the material still might end up in a landfill. So look around for companies that specialize in recycling. Just as an example, recycling office paper is big business. There is no shortage of companies that will come to you, shred your old documents on site, and then take all that paper off to a mill.

Establish Company Policies

Any company recycling program is only as good as the policies that govern it. After deciding what you want to recycle and finding vendors willing to take it, sit down with your management team and establish the company policies that will make it all work.

Policies should be as simple and unobtrusive as possible. They also shouldn’t be ambiguous. Lay out policies in detail so that questions are minimized once implementation begins in earnest.

Also note that policies almost always evolve over time. Following initial implementation, set a date to go back and review. You may need to revise some policies, scrap others, and come up with a few new ones.

Engage Your Employees

You will find your company recycling program is a lot more successful if you actively engage your employees. Ask for their input during the policy development stage. Develop policies in such a way that encourages their active involvement.

Once you actually launch the program, ask employees for constructive feedback and pay attention to it. You might even form a recycling committee composed of members of senior management, middle-management, and employees.

Recycling Is a Good Idea

The fact that you and your management team want to begin a company recycling program is good news to us. From our standpoint, recycling is almost always a good idea. It is hard to go wrong with recycling if you have procedures and policies in place to make it work effectively.

By helping companies recycle their industrial scrap plastic, we are also helping keep that plastic out of landfills. We are helping to reduce dependence on virgin plastic, thereby reducing the resources invested in manufacturing it.

If you have industrial plastic waste that you are looking to recycle in any of the states we actively serve, reach out to us through our website and tell us what you have. We might be able to take it off your hands.