By Kristy Bohling (Financial Education Consultant)

By efficiently reducing, reusing, and recycling, you can cut down costs for waste disposal services and inventory purchases, improve your business' public image, and contribute to your community's environmental well-being. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage a day, or a total of 29 pounds per week and 1,600 pounds a year.  This doesn't even include commercial and food businesses! In the U.S., each restaurant produces an average of 50,000 pounds of trash per year.  Depending on your business' activities, you might produce a lot of waste, but there are ways to cut down or dispose of waste in an environmentally friendly way.

Check out our strategies and quick tips below to reduce waste, save money, and involve your customers and employees in the process! 

Reduce

See our list of Waste Reduction Quick Tips below, but also consider programs like composting.  Your city may have online resources with advice, services, and discounted composting bins.  While it's hard to separate organic waste, especially in cities where space is limited, composting reduces waste, saves money for you by reducing local disposal costs, and enriches the soil. 

While composting services may vary city-to-city, learn how to compost, what services are available, and more by clicking on links to programs, starting with Boston and NYC.  If you are unable to compost on site, learn how you might participate in a municipal composting program.

Reuse

Reusing materials saves natural resources, reduces toxic waste, and cuts down on your costs of purchasing more materials and of waste disposal services.  When you manufacture, ship, and receive products that require less packaging, you are buying fewer raw materials. A decrease in manufacturing and shipping costs can mean a larger profit margin, with savings that can be passed on to the consumer or reinvested in your business. 

For example, a freezer equipment distributor in Maryland wanted to cut down on waste disposal and shipping costs.  They bought a paper shredder for $250 and shredded waste paper to replace foam packing peanuts in boxes they shipped.  They are saving between $1,500 and $2,000 a year by reducing waste disposal costs and their use of packing peanuts.[1]

Recycle

You can recycle items like paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum every week, and items such as refrigerators, heat pumps, air conditioners, batteries, printers, and certain toxic materials as needed.  Contact your waste disposal provider to see if they provide recycling pick-up services in addition to trash removal. 

It's true that many small businesses have limited waste and cannot negotiate or afford the recycling fees that collection services charge. If you want to recycle more but pay less, seek out other small businesses in your area to start a recycling cooperative.  While this takes enthusiasm and networking to start up, the long term benefits to the environment and your waste reduction—and thus cost savings—can be worth it.

Quick Tips to Reduce and Recycle Waste

• Make double-sided copies and create scratch pads from used paper.
• Order merchandise in bulk, which reduces waste and is cheaper than buying in small quantities. If buying in bulk provides you with an excess of supplies, pair up with other local businesses to do so.
• Purchase products with minimal packaging and/or in concentrated form and return cardboard boxes and foam peanuts to suppliers for reuse, or reuse them for your business' packaging needs.
• Use rechargeable batteries where practical to reduce waste and save on buying new batteries frequently.
• Sell or give old furniture and equipment to other businesses, local charitable organizations, or employees and donate surplus edible produce to food banks. This can cut down on the waste you produce and improve your public image, as you give back to and help the community.
  

Promote It

Offer customers waste reducing choices, such as selling products in returnable bottles and encouraging reuse of shopping bags by offering customers reusable bags for sale and providing a rebate for their use.  Get employees involved by starting an Environmental Management Plan (Link to EMP article), explaining why reducing waste is important to the business and to each employee personally and involving everyone in the process to make it a team effort.

[1] "Business Guide to Reducing Solid Waste." http://epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/red2.pdf