One Bin Day targets rubbish office recycling policies

Envirowise yesterday urged firms to take a close look at their office waste and recycling policies as part of the government-backed advisory group's One Bin Day initiative.

As part of the initiative, which urges employers to take individual bins away from office workers and replace them with one central bin, Envirowise released figures claiming approximately 70 per cent of office waste is recyclable yet less than eight per cent reaches a recycling bin.

The group claims this avoidable waste is costing UK Plc £15bn a year and with landfill taxes rising by over 30 per cent a year there is a strong financial case for firms to encourage greater levels of recycling.

Envirowise programme director Dr Martin Gibson said that removing employees bins for a day helps underline the scale of the waste problem. "The visual impact can be staggering," he said. "If workers follow their normal practices, the central bin will soon be overflowing within a matter of hours. Our initiative will help focus attention on just how much is used and thrown away daily."

Gibson suggested that the convenience of having a bin by a desk also tempts workers to throw away valuable and recyclable resources.

Companies that have taken up Envirowise's advice and permanently replaced employees bins with central recycling facilities admitted that the approach could lead to "obligatory grumbles" from staff, but added that the majority of employees tended to support the idea.

For example, Glasgow Airport which took part in One Bin Day last year and now has central recycling facilities in its offices, said that the idea had been broadly welcomed. "With more than 50 staff now segregating their waste, we're already reaping the benefits of this simple activity," said Gillies Crichton, head of HSE compliance at Glasgow Airport.

Meanwhile, consulting firm The Oxford Group said that the implementation of paper-saving initiatives had resulted in annual cost savings of £40,000.

Envirowise claims that 85 per cent of simple measures to cut office waste are free or very low cost. For example, UK offices waste 310m litres of water every day, but if every office fitted variable flush mechanisms to their toilets, costing around £20 per toilet and saving 4 litres per flush, the initiative could pay for itself within a week. "This step alone could represent cost savings of as much as £494 annually, per employee," said a spokeswoman for Envirowise.

Other green office steps include switching off computer monitors, which use twice as much power as PCs, turning down heating and installing energy efficient light bulbs.