3 Ways to Celebrate Zero Waste Week at Work
Sonya Cragg
DirectorLooking for some easy and achievable ways to mark Zero Waste Week this year? Beginning on the 1st and running until the 5th of September, Zero Waste Week encourages households, businesses and organisations to generate less waste. If you’re a business owner, give some of these Midas-approved ideas a try – even small changes can make a big difference. Make sure you snap some pictures and tag us in your zero waste efforts on Instagram and remember – it’s a challenge for a reason. Even if you can reduce your waste output, you’re still doing good for both people and planet. Here are three ways you can uphold Zero Waste Week at work.
Hold a mini waste audit
Set aside one day during Zero Waste Week to conduct the audit. Gather 2 or 3 volunteers (or more if you have a medium to large-sized business!) and create a green team. Collect and sort all waste that accumulates that day, placing it into categories such as paper, plastic, food scraps, coffee cups, packaging and electronics. Weigh or count the items in each category, and have your green team take note of the recurring waste streams, what could be reused or recycled and what better, more sustainable options could be used instead. For example, if your team gathers 30 plastic water bottles, you could implement the use of reusable bottles. If they collect lots of discarded printer paper, consider digitising your work processes even further. Finally, share the results over a low waste lunch day where you ask employees to bring their meals in reusable containers while avoiding individually packaged items. Over lunch, share the results and encourage reusable items in the workplace while unveiling new, improved recycling signage that reflects your company’s findings (Midas can help with this too).
Want to save time and resources? Contact us now and we’ll conduct a full waste audit of your business for free.
Say no to single-use items
Encourage your team to bring reusable containers to work and avoid the use of single-use plastics like cling film. That means meal prepping in advance, using sustainably made lunch boxes and bringing a flask of coffee to work instead of a takeaway cup. Want to make things more exciting? Consider providing coffee in-house if you don’t already, hold a raffle with all proceeds going to an environmental charity or offer a prize to the person who made the most effort to reduce waste throughout the week.
Implement a green points reward scheme
Everyone loves an employee reward scheme, so celebrate and reward a successful team effort at the end of Zero Waste Week by implementing one that looks to address recycling on an ongoing basis by encouraging your team to identify areas that can be improved while making a conscious effort to protect the environment (think recycling of printer cartridges and mulching of cardboard). The individuals or teams with the most points at the end of the week could receive a prize (think reusable tote bags, ethical coffee cups or sustainable lunch boxes). Make things more interesting by making up fun prize categories, such as ‘most likely to save the planet’ based on your team’s individual contributions and sacrifices throughout the week.
So, there you have it. Some easy, achievable ways to increase your recycling rates and reduce general waste whether you work in an office, on site or on the road. If you’d like Midas to conduct a full, free waste audit for you, get in touch here and we’ll take care of the rest.
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