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Start your own workplace recycling programme

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Published: Friday, 22 September 2017 07:01

Does your business have a recycling programme? If not, isn’t it time you put one into place? As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, organisations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate how they are contributing to a cleaner and safer space for their employees and the communities they operate in.

With Clean-up & Recycle SA Week (12 to 17 September) just around the corner, it is the perfect time to set up a programme to separate recyclables and reduce your business’s impact on the environment. Not only will a recycling programme present many opportunities for team-building, it will go a long way towards enhancing your company’s image amongst customers and suppliers.

Donna Noble, communications manager for Mpact Recycling, says starting a recycling programme is easy. “It is important to ensure everyone at the office knows how the recycling project works. Regular communication updates on the topic will keep recycling top of mind and employees interested in the programme.”

Ten recycling tips for the office
  1. Find out who the green champions in your office are and form a green team to drive your recycling initiative.
  2. Give the project a name to encourage buy-in from everyone and make it easily identifiable.
  3. Conduct a waste audit at the office. Find out how much recyclable waste is produced and what percentage is paper, plastic, glass, cans and other. If all the waste is going to landfill, it is time to make some changes at the office.
  4. Work out what the priorities are and come up with a recycling strategy. If most of your recyclable material is paper, commence with a paper recycling initiative.
  5. Visit the Mpact Recycling website to find out about recycling bags and Ronnie office recyclers. Mpact also offers a confidential shredding service at most of its Mpact Recycling branches to assist with the disposal of confidential documentation.
  6. Place bins in convenient locations such as shared workspaces and close to printers and photocopiers.
  7. Host green meetings and events. Harness the publicity around Clean-up & Recycling Week to generate additional excitement around the programme and start quarterly recycling drives.
  8. Celebrate success and reward the teams with the cleanest workspaces and who collects the most recyclable material.
  9. Review the programme regularly. Make adjustment where necessary. Expand it to incorporate other ‘green’ initiatives, like cleaning up a nearby river or park or expanding the initiative to a local community.
  10. Need additional motivation? Sign up for the Mpact Recycling office programme and make sure your company reduces its carbon footprint. Mpact will make a generous donation to the SPCA and Hospice on a rand-per-tonne basis from the materials collected from your office.
About Mpact:

Mpact is one of the leading paper and plastics packaging businesses in southern Africa, listed on the JSE’s Main Board in the Industrial - Paper and Packaging sector. The Group has leading market positions in southern Africa in recovered paper collection, corrugated packaging, recycled-based cartonboard and containerboard, polyethylene-terephthalate (“PET”) preforms, recycled PET (“rPET”), styrene trays and plastic jumbo bins. These leading market positions allow Mpact to meet the increasing requirements of its customers and achieve economies of scale and cost effectiveness at the various operations.

Mpact has 42 operating sites, of which 21 are manufacturing operations, in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Botswana. Sales in South Africa account for approximately 90% of Mpact’s total revenue for the current year while the balance was predominantly to customers in the rest of Africa.

As at 31 December 2016, Mpact employed 4,998 people. (December 2015: 4,467 people)