Need a low-cost initiative that makes management, employees, and customers happy? Recycling should fill the bill. Here are some tips and considerations for developing your company’s recycling policy from Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management for 2012.
Reduction in Paper Used. Your policy could encourage employees not to print or copy documents unnecessarily.
Packaging. If your business packages items for others, your policy should state that you seek to minimize the amount of packaging used to reduce trash. Encourage employees to make suggestions for reducing the amount of packaging while still protecting the product. Similarly, encourage employees to make suggestions on when to use recycled materials in your packaging.
Circulating Materials. To reduce the number of copies of an item, you may be able to circulate one copy among several people. Additionally, you may want to implement an e-mail, voice mail, or networking system to permit the routing of information without producing a hard copy.
Use of Recycled Material. Your policy can encourage use of items made from recycled materials. Your policy can also encourage the reuse of items before they are discarded. For example, copy paper printed only on one side can be recycled internally to make use of the blank back side (or even be made into scratch pads).
Items Not to Be Recycled. Your policy should expressly describe any items that should not be placed in a container for recyclables. Otherwise, a few items that are not to be recycled can ruin the contents of an entire container.
OSHA. There may be Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations regarding the disposal of certain workplace items, for example, needles in health care facilities. OSHA may also regulate storage of items in the workplace. Often material safety data sheets will provide the needed information.
General Safety. When identifying items that you will recycle, you should consider potential safety problems. For example, you may decide not to recycle glass because of the risk of breakage that may lead to a serious cut.
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Environmental Laws. Various federal and environmental laws regulate the disposal and recycling of materials, e.g., paint products, oil cans, tires, car batteries, or glass bottles.
Recycling Laws. State laws or local laws may require certain businesses to recycle specific items. Office buildings may be required to recycle soda cans. Further, several states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation requiring that newspapers sold in these areas contain prescribed amounts of newsprint produced from postconsumer newspapers.
Inefficiencies in Recycling
Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management for 2012 also notes that sometimes recycling can backfire. For example, some manufacturers of copiers warn against the use of recycled toner cartridges because there can be leakage of the material that may require the machine to be cleaned sooner than normal. Similarly, the use of the back side of a prior draft may cause your printer or copier to jam, resulting in inefficiencies or repairs.
Finally, if you have items that have outlived their usefulness to your company, but are still in working order, you may want to consider giving such items to a charitable organization that could use them.
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It’s hard to believe there are some workplaces that still don’t recycle. I thought those blue bins were just ubiquitous everywhere, but maybe that’s a California thing?