The benefits to your business

Cost savings

Reducing waste at source results in more efficient resource use and reduced waste treatment and disposal costs.

Increased throughput

More efficient use of materials allows more product to be made faster using the same equipment.

Reduced risk and liability

Minimising discharges of waste to the environment helps businesses meet legislative requirements.

Improved company image

Environmental performance is increasingly important to businesses and to consumers who are becoming aware of environmental issues. New Zealand’s clean green image is of vital importance to our international competitiveness. Good environmental performance protects our own environment and people, and enhances our image overseas.

Know what you are throwing away

When was the last time you looked in your bins? Do you really know what you are throwing away or what it is worth?

When you throw something away you may be paying for it twice. Once when you purchase it or the materials it is made from, then again when you pay for someone to take it away – so it is worth knowing what is going in the bin.

Start simple by having a regular quick look in your bins, check for large amounts of recyclables, offcuts or other people’s waste.

For more detailed information, do a waste audit. You can do a quick simple waste audit yourself – to find out how, see the Pollution Prevention Guide Waste Module.

Separate your waste

Separate your waste as close to source as possible. This means having separate bins or cages for different materials located either where the waste is generated, or in a single waste storage area. If you keep your waste streams separate, you can keep them clean and they have more value for reuse or recycling.

Tips and ideas

For the office

• Provide separate paper, cardboard, glass and aluminium recycling.
• Put paper recycling collection boxes under people's desks, beside photocopiers and printers and in the lunch room.
• Start up a staff waste exchange.
• Provide intranet copies of yellow and white pages, or company phone lists, instead of hardcopies at every desk.
• Find new homes for unwanted products e.g. computers.
• Set up a worm farm and divert your food scraps.
• Our managing waste at home page has simple ways you can reduce and reuse paper and cardboard.

On an industrial site
Reducing waste

• Accurately order the amount of material needed.
• Measure carefully to avoid throwing away excess
• Protect raw materials and finished product from damage by forklifts, water damage etc.
• Redesign your product to use less material or to minimise wasteful processes.

Bins and waste storage

• Keep different waste materials separate. For example, keep recyclables (paper, plastic, cardboard, glass and aluminium etc) separate from other waste that could be reused such as empty clean containers, end of line materials and off spec products.
• Provide different bins or skips for different waste streams to reduce contamination.
• Use clear labels, pictures or colour coding to show what goes in each bin.
• Use covers to prevent rain entering skips and waste being blown out of skips.
• Lock or secure the bins afterhours so you are not paying for other people's waste.

What Environment Canterbury does

Since April 2002, Environment Canterbury's offices have been ‘bin free’. We don’t have rubbish bins at our desks only paper recycling bins and small food scraps containers. On each floor we have a set of stacked bins for landfill waste, recycling and reusable items.

Reusable items are donated to a local organisation called Creative Junk, which supplies resources to schools, preschools and community groups.

Our paper and cardboard is recycled by commercial recyclers, while our containers go to either a commercial or council kerbside collection.

All our food scraps are collected and either taken off site for pig food or composted in compost bins in the gardens on-site.

For more information on this project, contact Environment Canterbury Customer Services.