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How to reduce waste costs

Producing waste costs your business money. The costs are twofold - you'll be wasting money on unused materials and you also have to pay disposal costs.

For example you can:

Reduce your costs for managing and handling your waste.
Reduce the amount of landfill tax that you pay. The current standard rate of landfill tax is £40 per tonne, but this will increase by £8 a year until April 2013.
Attract new customers and win contracts by showing yourself to be environmentally responsible.

You can often make these savings through little or no capital investment. They are often not just one-off savings, but could save your business money year after year.

How to reduce and reuse your waste

You should consider whether you can reduce or reuse your waste before you think about recycling it. Recycling uses energy and will cost more than reducing and reusing.

Reduce your waste

Buy in bulk. It will reduce your packaging.
Buy only what you need. You should control stock and look to streamline processes across departments.
Ask your staff to 'think before they throw'. Someone else may want to use it.
Where possible set your printers to print double sided by default.
When buying equipment consider the product's durability or lifespan. Replacing equipment less often will reduce the waste you create.

Reuse your waste

Refill toner and ink-jet cartridges.
Use waste paper as notepaper.
Use durable cups, mugs, glasses and cutlery rather than disposable alternatives.
Reuse envelopes.

Who can help

Envirowise produce an excellent guide, "200 tips for reducing waste"
EIE helps businesses reduce their environmental impacts
NISP put businesses producing waste in touch with other businesses that will use it
Business Link provides a lot of information on improving environmental performance