Trash cluttering up your complex or other buildings can be an eyesore and deter new business. It may seem impossible to deter patrons from carelessly littering, but you can take steps to reduce waste on your property. If you find this issue applies to you, you may be wondering how to manage waste and clutter within your building. Read on for the best steps that you can take to manage waste and clean up your building or property.
Have a Waste Management Plan
If you don’t already have one, create a waste management plan that outlines all your current data. Record things like how often you haul away the trash, what percentage of waste you recycle, and any information or numbers you want to improve. From there, when you start to introduce practices to reduce waste, you can compare the numbers. But first, you may be wonder what kinds of campaigns to include in a waste management plan. Here are a few ideas to help you reduce waste and become more eco-friendly along the way.
Consider the Three Rs
A common practice to incorporate into your waste management plan is the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Of course, the point of your plan is to reduce waste in the first place, and some great ways to accomplish this are through reducing and recycling. If you run a business, encourage your employees to bring reusable items to work, such as water bottles, lunch bags, and more. If this strategy doesn’t apply to your business as well, move on to recycling. Are you providing your customers or tenants with enough recycling opportunities? Keep reading for a good way to tell.
Increase Waste Receptacles
If you find that your building often has trash piling up outside of garbage cans or dumpsters, this is a good sign that you need to increase your number of waste receptacles or pickups.
Number of Bins
Another sign that you need more waste bins is the presence of trash on the floors and other surfaces of your building. Littering is pretty much unavoidable no matter how many trash cans you provide, but if you notice trash starting to pile up on your surfaces indoors or on your property outdoors, try adding more receptacles. Start by adding extra bins where you’ve noticed litter in your building and the surrounding property. You can find all varieties of outdoor and indoor garbage cans to fit your building’s needs at Trash Cans Depot.
Increased Trash Pickups
Similarly, if you find your dumpsters start to overflow with waste bags in the days leading up to trash pickup, you may want to increase these larger receptacles or even increase your number of trash pickup days. Schedule your trash pickup days with your community or hauling company. Between adding to your current arsenal of waste bins and scheduling pickups more often, you should notice a difference in the clutter around your building.
Separate Waste
While you shop around for more trash receptacles, consider what kind of bins you are looking for. Another way to manage waste is by reducing it. People throw away items that don’t actually belong in the trash every day, usually out of laziness. These non-waste items, such as recycling or compostable materials, don’t have to end up in landfills if you find a way to sort them properly.
Recycle, Compost, and More
Check on your community level as well as your waste removal service’s policies on recycling and composting. If they offer these pickup services, take advantage of them! Many types of garbage receptacles have slots for waste, recycling, and even composting materials. Some bins even feature all three categories together in one unit. Giving tenants or customers this option can significantly reduce waste because some things never belonged in the trash to begin with.
Make Categories Clear
Make sure to carefully advertise which bins contain each type of trash, whether it’s recycling, food waste for composting, or general waste. Otherwise, if patrons are confused, they may end up dumping everything in the waste compartment anyway. Put a sign up over each compartment that clearly illustrates what types of materials belong in them. Another way to promote the correct disposal methods is by color coordinating each trash compartment; for example, green for composting, blue for recycling, and black for general waste is common to distinguish which type of waste belongs in each bin.
And if the budget simply isn’t there for a fancy divided receptacle, providing recycling bins near garbage cans will still help decrease wrongful waste. Just make sure to place general waste and recycling bins as close as possible to each other. Even if you offer recycling services, some tenants will be less likely to take advantage of this if they must go out of their way to dispose of their recyclables properly. Situating trash and recycling containers near each other prevents the lazy habit of throwing out recyclables from re-forming.
Spread the Word
Make sure your tenants, guests, or customers know about updates to waste management policies by hanging flyers, sending emails, or making regular announcements. The only way to improve waste management is at the source, and if your patrons don’t know about new guidelines, they can’t follow them.
If you are managing an organization, make the recycling experience fun for everyone by creating challenges. For example, challenge your teams to see who can recycle the most during a certain period. Or, if you manage a housing complex or business, keep your tenants and patrons involved by posting how much waste they helped reduce by recycling that month.
Not only are these tips on how to manage waste and clutter within your building effective for waste management, but they are also environmentally conscious. By having a waste management plan and following these steps, you can cut down on clutter around your building and reduce waste headed to landfills. It’s a great opportunity for your business to make a difference while also improving your patrons’ quality of life by cutting down on clutter and eyesores such as overflowing dumpsters.
