Office waste costs UK business £15bn, campaigners say

Jessica Aldred, guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 08;

Campaigners are taking a giant rubbish bin to the streets of London today to highlight how much waste is generated in offices around the UK in a single day.

Envirowise, a government-funded group that advises business on sustainability, said bad waste practices are costing UK industry at least £15bn each year.

Today's One Bin Day campaign marks an effort to illustrate the problem and to prompt office works to rethink the way they use materials and handle waste.

The group is parading a giant, two-and-a-half metre high waste paper bin around the capital - made from the 1,584 sheets of paper that the average office worker prints off in a month - and urging the nation's 25 million office workers to use just one bin per office.

"One Bin Day is designed to make people think about what they buy, use and throw away," said Envirowise programme director, Martin Gibson.

"Much of what we discard can be reduced or recycled, but the convenience of a bin right by your desk makes for a big temptation to throw away valuable resources."

Envirowise wants offices to remove individual desk bins and force workers to walk to just one central bin.

"The visual impact can be staggering," Gibson said. "If workers follow their normal practices, the central bin will soon be overflowing within a matter of hours. This will help focus attention on just how much is used and thrown away daily. Once people start thinking about how they use things, they often think of how to reduce the amount they use, and improve the reuse and recycling of what is left."

Earlier today the giant bin was on London Bridge, and will later move to office commuter hotspots such as Liverpool Street and Victoria stations.

Envirowise says that approximately 70% of office waste is recyclable, but on average only 7.5% reaches a recycling facility. Some 80.6m tonnes of printing and writing paper enters the waste stream each year in the UK - 24% of total UK waste, figures show.

Recycling one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, and 4,000 kilowatts of energy. The average office worker uses 50 sheets of paper a day in unnecessary printing, figures show.

At 17.7%, Britain has one of the lowest recycling rates in Europe for the 335m tonnes of solid waste it produces each year.

Food waste accounts for one-fifth of all waste nationally, while Britons throw away 12bn aluminium cans and 6bn bottles a year, Envirowise said.

Waste from households, commerce and industry continues to grow by 3% a year. To help address this the group has put together a publication for offices that want to find out more about reducing waste, at envirowise.gov.uk.

Their tips include:

• Set the office printer to print on both sides of the paper by default.
• Use electronic communication where possible to reduce printing and faxing.
• Don't print out emails unless absolutely necessary. Add "Think before you print" to the bottom of email signatures as a prompt to others.
• Avoid over-production of marketing and publicity material by reviewing distribution lists and regularly updating databases.
• Collect all paper that has been printed on one side and reuse it for printing in draft, or for scrap message pads.
• Reuse envelopes wherever possible, especially for sending information internally.
• Place recycling bins in all offices.
• Ensure that vending machines allow the use of china mugs rather than plastic vending cups.
• Avoid purchasing disposable catering products such as milk jiggers, sugar sachets and paper plates.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) tested the use of one central bin in its estates division last year. It provided recycling bins for paper, cans and glass, and a communal lidded bin for waste going to landfill in an office of 30 staff.

"The campaign has been so successful at cutting waste and increasing environmental awareness that all new staff are briefed on how the scheme operates; we now only use transparent bin bags so we can be more aware of the waste we produce instead of hiding it in black bin bags; and we're extending the one bin provision to other departments at the LSE," said Victoria Hands, the college's environmental and sustainability manager.

Campaign to reduce unnecessary office waste
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 21 Feb 08;

A campaign aimed at cutting the huge amounts of unnecessary waste generated by offices has been launched.

Organisers say poor waste practices cost British industry £15bn per year with more than 80m tonnes of printing and writing paper thrown out in the UK annually.

The One Bin campaign launched by the sustainable business organisation Envirowise is intended to hammer home the recycling message.

By removing individual desk bins and forcing people to walk to just one central bin, Envirowise hopes to make the nation's 25m office workers think twice about the way they use materials and handle waste.

Programme director Dr Martin Gibson said: "One Bin Day is designed to make people think about what they buy, use and throw away. It highlights how much waste a typical office can generate in just one day. Much of what we discard can be reduced or recycled but the convenience of a bin right by your desk makes for a big temptation to throw away valuable resources."

The average office worker can get through 50 sheets of paper daily and although about 70 per cent of office waste is recyclable only about 10 per cent goes for recycling.

Dr Gibson said: "The visual impact can be staggering. If workers follow their normal practices, the central bin will soon be overflowing within a matter of hours.

"This will help focus attention on just how much is used and thrown away daily. Once people start thinking about how they use things, they often think of how to reduce the amount they use and improve the reuse and recycling of what is left."

For an overview of the campaign see www.envirowise.gov.uk/onebinday.

Facts and figures
# The UK produces 335m tonnes of solid waste every year but we only recycle 17.7 per cent of it - one of the worst rates in Europe.

# Waste costs UK industry at least £15bn a year.

# Britons create their own body weight in waste every five days.

# 80 per cent of all products are thrown away after just one use.

# The UK produces 3m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85 per cent is landfilled, 8 per cent incinerated and 7 per cent recycled.

# Industry, commerce and household waste is collectively growing by 3 per cent per annum.

# Food waste accounts for 21 per cent of total waste and is the largest single proportion of all waste.

# Collectively, paper and card are the next most commonly collected material for recycling, accounting for 28 per cent of all recycling.

# The average office worker gets through up to 50 sheets of paper a day, a lot of which is unnecessary printing.

# In the UK nearly 5m tonnes of paper is dumped in landfill or incinerated every year.

# Recycling just one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,000 kilowatts of electricity - more electricity than the average household uses in a year.

# We throw away 12bn aluminium cans in the UK every year.

# It takes as much energy to make one new aluminium can from raw materials as it does to make twenty from recycled aluminium.

# We throw away five of every six bottles sold in the UK. This means over 6bn bottles are going to landfill every year.

# The energy saved by recycling just one bottle will power a computer for 25 minutes.

# If you recycle just one glass bottle you will save enough energy to power a 60 watt light bulb for 6 hours.

# Computer monitors use twice the energy of PCs - switch monitors off when away from your desk for meetings or lunch.

# 70 per cent of office waste is recyclable - but on average only 7.5 per cent reaches a recycling facility.

# Landfill taxes are rising by 32 per cent a year so it makes sense on all fronts to sort your waste out sooner rather than later.