How Waste Can Seriously Impact Any Business

Waste is simply something they throw into their bins for many people and is collected from the end of their driveways every week or so. For businesses, it can cause a whole lot more headaches than that. Here’s a look at how waste can seriously impact any business.

The effort of disposing of it

A lot of businesses aim to either create or sell a product or service as quickly as possible without spending too much money producing that product or service. That means any waste can cause big problems for a business if it takes a long time to dispose of it and also costs you a lot of money to pay someone to take the waste away for you. With many materials, separating what can be recycled and can’t be recycled is easy. All you need to do is train your staff to recognize what materials can be recycled and put them into a separate bin. Many different waste companies will then take this separated waste and recycle the separated waste while sending the non-recyclable waste to landfills.

Some materials are a lot harder to handle. For example, liquids such as oils can be extremely hard to control if they’re spilled or flow from whatever area you’re working in. A lot of oils can be extremely damaging to the environment around it and could even contaminate the water supply wherever you’re working. Luckily, there is specialist machinery that engineering firms can buy or even hire for smaller projects to stop these problems from happening. Before any project begins, it’s important to work with an experienced company like Oil Water Separator Technologies to understand exactly how they can dispose of any waste in the most environmentally way possible. Their equipment allows workers to quickly separate damaging oil from clean water, making sure no harmful chemicals make it back into the water system. Failure to do so could cause big problems for any site and could even see work stopped completely by environmental health workers.

Damage the product or machinery you rely on every single day

Most of the time, waste will just be an unwanted result of something you do as a business. It normally will be something that you simply have to gather up and find the best way to dispose of it. In other instances, waste could actually damage the actual product you’re making or the machinery that is vital to making that product. For example, if you’re mixing ingredients, even if the smallest amount of waste enters this mixture, it could seriously damage the end product. If a piece of waste makes it into the end product and someone finds it within their food, you would not only be forced to recall all the products made in that batch and throw them away, but it’s also likely you’d incur some large fines. You’d also most likely have to pay out compensation to the customer who found the waste in your product, and it could do irreparable damage to your brand.

Even if you don’t produce a food product, even the smallest amount of waste could cause big problems. For example, if you’re a painter or decorator, you might often be required to sand materials before you paint them. While sanding makes a better and cleaner surface to paint on, it also creates a lot of dust. Fail to get rid of this dust before painting whatever material you’re required to, and you could actually be trapping this dust into the paintwork. If the customer isn’t happy with the texture of the finish, they could force you to sand the surface and start the painting again.

It can put people off visiting your premises

Another big problem with waste is that it can seriously impact any potential customers’ first impression of your business. For example, if you run a café and a customer walks past your premises and spots a lot of litter on the floor, it will give them a very negative first impression of your business. It may give them the impression that you don’t care about the appearance of your building, and therefore won’t care about other important parts of the business. While the litter probably isn’t caused by you and might not even be caused by people leaving your business, it’s important to regularly clean up the area outside of your building. Install trashcans outside your building to encourage others to dispose of their rubbish rather than simply dropping it on the floor.

More people want to see businesses improve their carbon footprint

One of the most rapidly increasing problems regarding waste is customers’ attitudes towards waste. A few years ago, most customers would not have even thought about the packaging that came with their product. They would have simply removed the item from the packaging and thrown it away. These days, more and more people are becoming angry that some businesses use far too much packaging than they need to and waste vital materials. Some customers care so much about this issue that they’ll even stop shopping at some businesses if they believe they’re not doing enough to rectify the problem. If you regularly sell products or even dispatch them to home addresses, consider whether you can reduce the amount of packaging you’re sending to protect those products.

Money down the drain

When you’re throwing something in the bin, it’s normally something that you’ve paid for. Whether it’s a small offcut of a material or a perishable ingredient that has aged too much to use, it’s all money that comes out of your business. That’s why by reducing the number of materials you waste, you could also reduce the amount of money you’re spending on materials. If you’re dealing with perishable ingredients, make sure you only have just enough to complete the work that needs to be done. If you find you’re regularly throwing away offcuts of other materials, consider whether there is a better way of cutting the shapes needed to reduce the amount of waste thrown away.