The Benefits of Recycling for Business

It is widely known that recycling has a wonderfully positive impact on the environment around us but embracing recycling commercially can also positively affect your business. With the introduction of the green economy across the UK, ensuring that your workplace has an effective waste management system that includes recycling or investing in recycled products is essential to improving your company.

Government Regulations

The UK government has made significant strides toward making the nation carbon-neutral, but limiting carbon emissions is not the only element in this emerging green economy. For example, effective waste management and recycling have become essential to any commercial environment. While no law demands businesses recycle, it is widely supported through guidelines such as the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 and the required implementation of the waste hierarchy.

This regulation applies to any business, no matter the size, that either import, produces or transports waste. These guidelines are essential to limiting harmful waste to minimal amounts, which helps the environment and businesses financially. This logic is more understandable when you consider your onsite assets.

Daily tasks will inevitably lead to wear and tear on assets, such as plastic storage boxes, making them unusable. Re-acquiring new boxes to replace these broken ones will be a recurring expense, but it can be mitigated through carefully choosing more cost-effective replacements. For example, storage boxes made from raw materials will naturally be more costly due to their manufacturing requirements. In contrast, recycled plastic storage boxes are more cost-effective due to their recycled materials. At Alison Handling, we are known for our commitment to providing environmentally friendly plastic storage solutions of varying sizes and styles for many different businesses.

What Is the Waste Hierarchy?

The waste hierarchy is visualised with an upside-down triangle (shown in the image). When a business decides how to resolve its current waste, it should consider the steps of this triangle from top to bottom. The most beneficial choices are at the top, in the largest segment, with the less appealing options further down.

Prevention is the most practical first step of the waste hierarchy and aims to prevent the materials from becoming waste in the first place. This step can be enhanced by making your production processes leaner or by maintaining your assets, such as investing in heavy-duty dollies to transport your boxes instead of dragging them.

Reuse and recycling are the most beneficial when prevention is impossible. These are the best-known steps, with recycling being a significant factor in business waste management. At Alison Handling, we focus on stocking as many recycled plastic storage boxes and recycled transport containers as possible.

Recovery is when you focus on getting what you can from your waste. Waste-to-energy is a common term as waste at this level will be incinerated to produce electricity, or organic elements are composited to encourage new growth.

Disposal is the last step in the hierarchy as it does not benefit the environment. This is where your waste is sent to a landfill and disposed of. To promote more sustainable choices, the UK is taxing landfill use significantly, making it a wrong choice for both the environment and business.

Environmental Benefits

We know that the most significant impact recycling has is on the environment itself, and by protecting the environment, we are protecting ourselves. So whether it's at home or for your business, how does recycling help?

Reducing pollution is the most visible result of using the waste hierarchy or recycling. The essence of both is that raw materials are reused rather than the alternative, where the waste gets deposited in the ground to rot over many years. When materials are discarded, it inevitably leads to the need for replacements, which are made with new materials that take a significant industry to acquire. Recycling cuts out these two steps of disposal and new manufacturing for a cheaper, leaner process of reuse.

Business Benefits

Cultivating a green image is an integral part of modern business. The nationwide movement toward a green economy is tied to this public perception that rejecting recycling and recycled assets such as the previously mentioned recycled plastic storage boxes is a negative approach to business. This is primarily due to the public's growing awareness of recycling's benefits. As environmental conscience is increasingly championed, companies who follow suit are gaining the positive image that they are responsible and caring and would be good business partners.

Employing the waste hierarchy will limit the amount of waste you need to remove each week. For example, discovering new ways to reuse assets or recycle others will mean your waste bins fill slower; this can open opportunities to optimise your waste management by negotiating lower fees for less waste taken away.

Recycled Plastic Storage Solutions

At Alison Handling, we’re committed to offering a wide range of quality recycled products to meet your plastic storage and transportation needs.

We also buy and sell used plastic boxes as an alternative to our range of recycled plastic storage boxes. These cost-effective choices are excellent for anyone who wants to save money whilst saving the planet. Please browse our selection of products online.