When it comes to waste management and recycling, the area that is often overlooked or not given focus is around providing suitable education of employees.
Lack of training and education can lead to confusion, resulting in increased volumes of recyclables being disposed at landfill and contamination of recyclable streams, which can incur unnecessary costs for the business and frustration for all stakeholders involved.
Training & educating employees does not have to be complicated or an expensive process to provide a good learning outcome for your business. The following are the three recommendations that we believe helps deliver the right results.
APPOINTMENT OF A SITE CHAMPION(S)
The appointment of a site champion/champions is recommended. They can and will likely be happy to incorporate the responsibility into their existing role and can be the difference to having a successful recycling and waste management program.
• They will take ownership which is important,
• They can identify, manage, work through problems and raise issues as they are encountered,
• They will assist in selling program benefits to fellow employees,
• They will provide feedback for improvement opportunities into the future,
• They can assist with providing ongoing training and support.
SITE INDUCTION AND TRAINING
The reality is that waste management and recycling activities and related company requirements are often not covered all that well in induction and training materials. As a result, desired outcomes are not achieved.
Therefore, we highly recommend the development, inclusion and implementation of appropriate training materials included in the induction and training phases for new employees and for refresher training.
SITE SIGNAGE
Probably one of the most effective and low-cost tools that helps ensure the success of a recycling program is the application of site signage.
This prevents confusion, improves recycling recovery, reduces contamination and offers clear identification of waste with the highly visual colour coded signage
Improving your on-site recycling and waste management performance will provide your business with improved financial and operational results and will also improve environmental outcomes.
Good for Business, Good for the Environment.
Find out how to streamline your business’s recycling and waste management systems
