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80 easy ways to reduce waste in your organisationCreating less waste is not only good for our environment, it’s also good for business.
Yet, finding the time and learning the skills needed to take action can be a big challenge.
That’s why we’ve put together this quick start guide, which contains 80 easy ways to cut down on
waste in your business. We’ve included many of the opportunities we see every day in organisations
across Scotland. Many of the ideas are so simple and straightforward that they won’t cost you a penny
and will help you to start saving money straight away.
Printable version available here
This is by no means a definitive list of ways to cut
down on waste, so if you have any more great
ideas that have worked for your organisation, we
would love to hear from you.
Email the team at
your tip could feature in the next edition.
80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Toilets
Office
Production Area
Canteen
The 80 tips
have been
organised into
groups aligned
with the
functional
areas of a
business.
Go to the next
page, or click on
the area that
interests you
most. Other
Warehouse
80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Hold an annual ‘stationery amnesty’. A surprising amount of material can be
recovered by asking staff to hand in all their unused items for reuse.
Encourage staff to re-use envelopes, wallets and packaging wherever possible to
reduce waste and procurement costs.
Set up a central location for office equipment that is rarely used (such as staplers,
hole punches and calculators) rather than buying each member of staff their own
items.
Implement an ordering system to discourage excessive use of stationery. This
allows you to monitor departments and target high-use areas for reductions.
Ensure all stationery orders go through one person to avoid duplicated orders.
Office
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Choose electronic communications over printing, to reduce the need to print
internal memos and copies of reports. Ensure that colleagues are comfortable with
using technology and provide training where necessary.
Do not print documents and emails unless absolutely necessary. Add reminders on
email signatures to avoid printing. Unnecessary or excessive printing increases
paper, toner and electricity costs, as well as equipment maintenance and
replacement costs. It also increases waste disposal costs for the additional paper
and toner cartridges used.
Encourage your colleagues to review draft copies before printing using print
preview – this will often flag up any issues that can be corrected on screen.
Ensure that non-confidential paper is not put in the secure confidential waste
collections. Shredding confidential waste costs more, so give clear instructions to
staff so they know the types of materials that should be treated as confidential.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Encourage staff to access PDF copies of manuals, policies and handbooks on the
network instead of printing lengthy documents.
Provide a tray next to the printer to collect paper that has only been used on one
side and can be reused for printing in draft or for scrap message pads.
Use outdated letterheads and in-house memos as scrap paper.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Avoid overprinting. For example, avoid printing too many copies of marketing and
publicity materials by reviewing distribution lists and regularly updating databases.
Don’t put specific dates on marketing materials if you don’t need to, to extend their
life. If you do need to print marketing materials with event or date-specific
information, print off small batches that can be quickly used up, so you don’t have
to over-stock.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
If printing is unavoidable, ensure that all printers are set to double-sided format as
default.
If you have to print, reduce the page margins. Reducing the margin settings
enables you to fit more onto the page.
When printing long documents, try to print two or more pages to an A4 sheet,
providing the text is still readable.
Use thinner paper. Thinner paper is not only cheaper to buy and less heavy when
being disposed of but also uses less energy in the manufacturing process and less
energy in the printing process to apply ink. 80gsm paper is suitable for most
routine printing jobs.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Refill, rather than replace printer cartridges. Printer toner cartridges are very
expensive to purchase so any opportunity you have to save money by refilling
should be taken.
If you cannot refill, buy remanufactured toner cartridges. High-quality recycled
cartridges are available with the same performance as new cartridges, but at a
lower price. Return your toner cartridges for remanufacture by pre-paid envelope,
through a specialist remanufacturing company or schemes run by charities.
Set your printers to print in black and white as standard. It’s more expensive to
print in colour so setting to black and white as standard reduces unnecessary
colour printing and saves you money.
Reduce the number of printers. In particular, remove desk printers which are
expensive to run and encourage people to print items as they are easy to reach.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Implement a ‘hold print’ system. If printing needs to be confirmed at the printer
itself then the extra action often reduces the amount of unnecessary printing.
These systems can often be set to automatically delete items left in the printer
queue overnight, further reducing unnecessary printing.
If fax machines are necessary, ensure they are set so they don’t produce unwanted
header or report sheets. Explore low resource options, for example install a fax
server allowing faxes to be sent directly from computers.
If you have only an occasional need for particular printing machines or equipment,
consider sharing them with other organisations in your area.
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80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Make a list of redundant equipment in stock (such as chairs, desks, furniture and IT
equipment). Make another list of new items required across your organisation. Use the
lists to spot opportunities to re-use equipment - saving you money on purchase and
disposal costs.
Repair, refurbish or re-upholster existing office furniture instead of buying new as the
financial and environmental savings may be significant.
Ask your computer supplier/manufacturer about refurbishment contracts. Ensure
redundant equipment is collected and that you receive revenue for the residual value.
If your organisation can’t re-use your old items, can someone else? Consider if other
organisations in your area can use your waste before you pay to have it taken away by
your waste contractor.
If you have equipment that uses batteries, use rechargeable batteries where
practicable.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Prior to confirming catering arrangements for meetings, accurately establish the
numbers attending – most people over order, resulting in food waste.
Buy consumables in bigger sizes where possible, and avoid individual milk
containers, sachets of salt, pepper and sugar and small packets of sauces.
Ordering small quantities will generally be better for goods that have a short shelf-
life or are not used in large quantities.
Support local food suppliers to promote local delicacies and reduce food miles,
food waste and packaging.
Canteens and
kitchens
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Review portion sizes and consider asking customers whether they would like salad
garnish instead of giving it to them automatically.
Review leftover food on a regular basis. This will help to identify unpopular dishes
and reduce food waste.
Give your chef freedom to put specials on that use up left-over ingredients.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Ensure that drinks vending machines allow the use of china mugs rather than
plastic vending cups.
Replace bottled water with water coolers that are attached to the water supply. This
will reduce service charges incurred from the use of bottles, transportation and
packaging.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Provide staff with durable products such as metal cutlery, glasses and ceramic
mugs for drinks consumed in the work place. Avoid purchasing disposable catering
products, such as plastic cutlery, paper plates and single-use cups.
When ordering, request that food and drink is delivered in returnable plates, trays
and boxes to reduce packaging waste.
If you have infrequent large meetings and big events, consider hiring products like
glasses and plates rather than buying single-use products.
Concentrated cleaning products e.g. floor and kitchen surface cleaners,
dishwashing detergents, hand soaps and hand sanitisers can save you storage
space and money as they contain less water and can reduce packaging by over
50%. These can be diluted on site and dispensed in re-usable bottles.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Buy and use concentrated products such as toilet cleaners, surface cleaners and
handwash which can be diluted on-site and dispensed in re-usable bottles. They
contain less water so can reduce packaging by over 50%.
Replace paper towels with high efficiency hand dryers – it’s likely that you will be
able to make significant financial savings in this way.
Consider taking it a step further and provide reusable towels.
Toilets
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Do a spot check for transit damage and alert your supplier to any damage you find. It
is in both your interests to eliminate the causes of damages.
Re-use packaging materials such as cardboard boxes and bubble wrap.
Purchasing goods in bulk can save you money and reduce your packaging waste by
cutting down the number of small, empty containers that need to be disposed of.
When ordering, choose minimally packaged products or ask your suppliers to supply
products in less packaging.
Storage areas,
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Speak to your suppliers to arrange a facility for returnable crates, pallets and
boxes.
Ask suppliers to take excess packaging away with them when they deliver.
For goods that have a short shelf-life or are not used in large quantities, consider
placing smaller orders to avoid them spoiling while in storage.
Train and remind staff to make sure that they carry out ‘first in – first out’ stock
rotation with every delivery of new stock.
Put up reminder notices in the stockrooms to staff to take stock from the front and
to check the dates when stocking up the service area.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Fit forklift trucks with the most appropriate handling equipment (such as plates or
rubber-tipped tines) as they can do considerable damage through accidental
collisions, as well as in the course of handling.
Store materials clear of fork-lift truck access routes and train operators to keep
damage to the minimum.
Check that your storage area is dry, clean and kept at the proper temperature and
humidity to avoid damage or contamination that could degrade the materials.
Arrange for damaged pallets to be repaired as it can work out to be cheaper than
buying new.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Compact cardboard and other bulky wastes to make efficient use of disposal facilities.
Shrink-wrap, stretch-wrap and plastic bags: many companies find that they can reduce the
grade of material used, say from 50 µm to 30 µm, without any reduction in product
protection.
Consider automatic or semi-automatic pallet wrappers which can help to reduce the use of
stretch-wrap and improve productivity.
Consider implementing a packaging re-use scheme which can be cost-effective. These can
be pallets, drums and IBCs, crates, boxes, trays, separators, layer pads and collars.
As well as re-using, can you resell?
Production area
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Purchase powders in pellets or big bags. Purchasing in big bags is not only
cheaper, but also means there is less powder left behind after dispensing.
Purchasing raw materials in pellet form instead of powder reduces extraction
losses and the residue left in the bag after emptying.
Use large mobile containers, not drums, for internal movements of liquids. The
additional cost of packaging an intermediate product into drums rather than bulk
containers can be considerable.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Undertake a mass balance of key areas of your production to inform you of which
processes create the most waste and target them accordingly. Measure the total
mass input to the process, then the mass output of good product and known
wastes, and find the difference, which is the total loss of that specific process.
Check transfer lines for spillage points. Product conveyor belts tend to spill product
at bends and switchover points. Survey these and weigh the waste generated at
each point per shift to prioritise which to address first. You can then implement
solutions such as changing the speed of the conveyor, fitting suitable guides, or
minimising the gap between points.
Keep records of spoilt items and wastage. Retail outlets can overestimate theft,
when often products have just been thrown away unrecorded.
Recover product from pipework more effectively before cleaning by using pigs or
by purging with an appropriate gas. Pigging is a simple and cheap technique that
can prevent product build-up in pipework and reduce waste.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
If your staff wear uniforms, lease or hire uniforms instead of buying them outright.
Set up a proactive return-of-uniform policy for when individuals leave your
employment. This will increase the supply of uniforms for re-use and save you
buying new uniforms when they are not needed.
To extend the lifetime of staff uniforms, ensure that they are repaired as often as
possible before disposal is considered as a last resort.
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Review your bills for the last 1 or 2 years and check if you need all the bins supplied
by your contractor. Combine this with regular waste audits in high waste producing
business areas.
Check if you fully use each bin supplied by your waste contractor. If not, ask your
contractor to remove them or reduce the frequency of collection.
Find out if you can bale or compact your waste. Doing so will reduce the number of
collections needed and may make storing waste on site easier.
There can be financial advantages from separating glass, cans, plastic bottles and
paper for separate collection if clean and uncontaminated. It may even provide a
revenue where such materials are presented in bulk. Their value is dependent on
the market price of specific materials and transport costs to reprocessors.
See letsrecycle.com for monthly and historical recycling values of different materials.
Other
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80 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR WASTE BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY BUSINESSES80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
Try the Savings Finder and get a free report, relevant to your own organisation,
that highlights the energy, water and raw material cost savings that you could make
now, and in the future.
http://savingsfinder.resourceefficientscotland.com
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Is the availability of capital finance an issue? Why not consider a Resource
Efficient Scotland SME Loan. An unsecured, interest free loan from £1,000 to
£100,000 may be available to support your business to reduce costs through
improved energy, material resource and water efficiency.
Find out more
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Speak to Resource Efficient Scotland to request a free resource efficiency audit of
your site and a supporting report showing you prioritised areas, cost savings,
resource savings and payback period. If you need finance, the report helps support
the SME loan application.
Find out more
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Free supportResource Efficient Scotland can give you
expert, one-to-one support to help you improve
your resource use and save money.
Funded by the Scottish Government, all our advice
for SMEs is completely free, independent and
confidential.
Give us a call today on 0808 808 2268.
101 EASY WAYS TO CUT YOUR ENERGY BILL - A MONEY SAVING CHEAT SHEET FOR BUSY OFFICES 80 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE IN YOUR ORGANISATION - QUICK MONEY SAVING IDEAS FOR BUSY BUSINESSES
If you found this document useful, you can also
download a compact printable version here.