It makes business sense to have a robust approach to waste management. Whether it’s the operational costs or the strategy, your waste management process is essential to ensuring that you are handling waste safely and legally.
All businesses generate waste of some kind. The strategic value in coming up with an effective waste management plan is paramount to good business practice. Thinking about how your waste is generated and how it is disposed of, including storage, transportation and means of disposal are all crucial aspects to consider. Here’s why commercial waste management is essential to businesses.
Costly to Ignore
While your business will endure some costs to ensure that your waste is being disposed of correctly, it can be even more costly to ignore these responsibilities. With landfill taxes on the rise, you cannot afford not to find cost-saving measures in waste disposal.
Whether it’s hefty fines for not fulfilling your legal responsibilities, or failing to spot places where waste could be reduced or recycled and used again by your business, by not tackling your waste management efficiently, you could be losing out on essential funds.
The Future is Green
Climate change is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and businesses are expected to do more about this growing threat. In England, waste from commercial and industrial activities amounted to 36.1 million tonnes in 2017, and this rose to 37.2 million tonnes in 2018. This increase is telling and needs to be tackled by every industry.
Businesses that take more responsibility for greener waste disposal will not only be looked on more favourably by consumers, but as climate change becomes more of a real-life threat, businesses have a responsibly to do everything they can to implement more effective waste management strategies to reduce the amount of waste they are producing.
Affects Operations
How much waste your business operations produce can be very telling about where cost-cutting measures can be made, and more efficient business practices implemented. Take a look at the waste you actually create, identify areas for savings and changes. By reducing the amount of raw materials needed and increasing the re-use of certain materials, it all has knock-on effects on the cost of your output.
Matters to Customers and Employees
Waste management isn’t something done behind closed doors anymore. Consumers care about the businesses they use and how their practices impact the planet. All businesses are subject to scrutiny when it comes to their environmental mindset. If you implement environmentally responsible practices, including waste management, consumers will look at this favourably and be more inclined to use your services.
Effective waste management is also vital to your employees. You have a duty of care to your employees and, in some cases, the incorrect storage and disposal of waste can have negative health impacts on the people who work for you. It’s not only financially sound to implement a successful waste management system, but it’s paramount to ensuring the protection of your workers.
Legal Responsibilities
Crucially, there are regulations around business waste management that are enforced for health and safety and environmental reasons. You have a legal responsibility to ensure you adhere to these regulations or you could face penalties. So, aside from all the financial and ecological benefits to effective waste management, you have a legal responsibility to ensure effective and safe procedures are in place.
How To Implement a Waste Management Strategy
Start by reviewing your current processes and devise ways to reduce your significant sources of waste internally and by liaising with your suppliers. Consider how waste is generated in your company, how it is stored and then disposed of. Set about coming up with an action plan to make improvements and implement them – consider the cost benefits to this.
Once your new strategy is implemented, you need to ensure all staff are held accountable for its effective implementation. It should comply with the law, streamline waste production, encourage re-use and recycling and provide ideal storage and disposal for the waste.
A great way to optimise waste management is to outsource it to specialists who can do all the legwork for you. They will ensure they meet all your legal requirements and offer advice and insights designed to suit your unique business needs. From providing containers to taking your waste away, outsourcing your waste management to a professional company can take away a lot of the hassle of doing it within your own business. Experts know the best strategies for removing waste and will do so safely and legally.
Morecambe Metals are scrap metal recycling experts. We can provide scrap metal collection, handling, processing and distribution. Morecambe Metals is an authorised and approved waste management company; we can dispose of your scrap metal and ensure that all transactions are made under Duty of Care requirements and with a transparent audit trail and fully compliant paperwork.
We can provide you with general advice and consultation, a competitive pricing structure, a scrap metal bailing service, non-ferrous metal recycling, ferrous metal recycling, end of life vehicle recycling service and a clearance metal recycling service. All our services are designed to help you remove unwanted scrap metals professionally, adhering to all legal requirements.