Three Simple Steps to Get Your Business Simpler Recycling ready

With Simpler Recycling legislation coming into to force on 1st April, this will reshape the guidelines for commercial waste management. This blog details the three simple steps to help your business get prepared and stay compliant with the new rules. 

Simpler Recycling – Simplified

For all businesses with 10 or more employees across the entire company, this legislation is bringing in mandatory recycling for 7 core items: 

1. Food Waste  
2. Glass (if you produce any) 
3. Rigid Plastics (bottles, tubs and trays) 
4. Metals (cans)  
5. Carton 
6. Paper 
7. Cardboard 

Check out our other blog What do I need to know for my business? and our full Simpler Recycling guide for more information.  

Confused about Paper and Card? Our blog Paper and Cardboard Out? will tell you everything you need to know.  

So, You Understand the Changes – What’s Next?

At Recorra, we’ve made it simple to be Simpler Recycling compliant. All you need to do is follow these 3 easy steps:  

1) Evaluate Your Current Waste Streams

Check your current waste streams to make sure all 7 mandatory materials are being recycled and collected.  

The most important change for many businesses is the introduction of mandatory food waste collections. All businesses – regardless of how much food waste they produce – must collect their food waste for recycling, there is no minimum quantity. So, whether you produce an apple core or an apple tree, you’ll have to have to have food waste collections set up.  

Mixed recycling is a legally required stream to collect plastics, cans and cartons. While paper and cardboard can be collected with mixed recycling, the government advises segregating these materials. At Recorra, we recommend collecting paper and cardboard in their own streams for the best environmental outcome and cost savings.  

Splitting another stream can be difficult, so if you can only do one, we recommend choosing paper. This is because the fibred in paper can easily be weakened by contamination from food or drink residue, meaning it is no longer high quality enough to be reprocessed. Segregating paper protects this damage from occurring, resulting in environmental and financial savings.  

If you already have a confidential shredding service, you can move to a ‘shred all policy’, so that all paper can be disposed of in the same way. For more information on the benefits of source segregation, read our blog here.  

Separate glass collections are essential for Recorra customers who regularly produce glass. Our rule of thumb is that this applies to any businesses producing 5 or more glass bottles a week. Unlike food waste, however, this does not need to be set up by every business.  

2) Review Your Current Bin Infrastructure

Your bin infrastructure (which we lovingly refer to as your binfrastructure) consists of the bin setup in your office at the point of disposal.  

How your bins are set up can have a huge impact on the way a business’s waste is collected, so optimising you binfrastructure is an essential step for making sure your business is compliant with these new changes.  

Top Tips for Binfrastucture: 

• Where possible, have centralised bin stations rather than stand-alone bins. Stand-alone bins offer a quick and easy way to dispose of waste, but they often result in poor segregation. By using centralised bin stations and removing under desk bins, individuals have the choice to separate their waste at the moment of discard. 

• Implement colour-coded bin sacks. Using Recorra’s tinted sacks helps make it visually clear what each stream is, without stopping you from being able to see inside the bins (so contamination can still be identified!) 

• Ensure Recorra’s updated signage is on all your bins. This helps to clearly identify what is suitable to go in each bin and eliminate any confusion. 

Our dedicated Sustainability Team are at the ready to conduct a Recycling Improvement Strategy assessment. This thorough investigation consists of floor walks to assess your bin infrastructure, followed by a tailored report highlighting ways in which you can improve your recycling rates.  

Alternatively, check out our DIY self-assessment here to see if your binfrastructure is Simpler Recycling compliant. 

Recorra also provide bespoke, colour-coded signage to help with waste separation, making it easy for everyone to understand how to recycle. These can be downloaded for free at our website. Download Here

3) Educate and Train Your Staff

The right bins and signage are an essential part for achieving Simpler Recycling compliance, but the key to success is your staff.  

That’s why Recorra provides all our customers with up-to-date education and training materials to ensure a smooth transition.  

Our resources include:  

• Simpler Recycling Guides: We have created an in depth and easy to understand guide for everything your employees need to know about Simpler Recycling, ready to be distributed.  
• Our in-depth training videos (available in multiple languages), as well as our info sheets and factsheet are also available for customers to download, simplifying each stream to help educate busy staff. You can also view our fun and informative videos on LinkedIn and YouTube. 
• Engagement activities with our Sustainability Consultancy Team. If you’re looking for a hands-on approach, our Sustainability Consultants are experts in providing engagement activities and opportunities, including:
  • Awareness days 
  • Workshops and training 
  • Games  
  • Tours of our MRF to see firsthand our recycling in action 
  • Each month, one of our consultants lead an online webinar helping you stay up to date with everything waste and recycling. Catch up and share our Simpler Recycling Webinar here with your staff.  
• Make sure to follow us on our socials (LinkedIn and YouTube) for easy-to-understand content and videos, and regular updates for everything Simpler Recycling – encourage your employees to do the same so they have access to all our updates as well! 
• Our blog is also full of information on Simpler Recycling and beyond.  

By Tara Vellani and Bryony Sharma