UK Businesses Missing Out on Revenue from Recycling their Waste : BLOG: How Much is your Waste Worth?
When it comes to waste disposal solutions, some businesses are paying out unnecessary costs which could be saved investing in alternative solutions. With recycling becoming an increasing concern in the, David Coleman calls for more UK businesses to seek the appropriate cost-effective solutions.
It’s not uncommon for businesses to immediately look to solutions like skip hire, bin collections, or sending waste to landfill to deal with their waste in a quick and simple way.
It all adds up, however, when you consider the costs of these particular solutions over time.
Previous research has suggested that if your business is paying out even the smallest of weekly payments for waste management like skip hire, alternative solutions such as baling presses could be a more cost-effective solution.
On top of this, in the UK, if your business is exceeding a yearly turnover of £2 million and is handling over 50 tonnes of packaging material, you’re categorised as an “obligated” packaging producer.
So, if not for anything else, larger businesses should implement a recycling strategy on the basis that they have a responsibility to do so.
Some baling presses available to the UK market can now compress the volume of waste by up to 95%. As well as saving costs on transportation and reducing carbon footprint, certain baled materials are valued by recycling collection companies. This means that you could be gaining money back on your baled waste.
In time, the costs of repeatedly hiring skips, for example, could be returned from the revenue achieved by a baler. Research by transnational recycling company Veolia noted that businesses can save up to £400 a month by diverting waste from landfill tax.
On top of that, investing in balers comes with intangible cost benefits too. For instance, hiring skips or sending waste to landfill could also be costing the environment.
PET plastics and cardboards
Currently in the UK, we use 35 million plastic bottles every day. Too much of this material ends up in our oceans.
With this figure on the rapid increase, it’s time our businesses gave deeper thought to how their waste disposal management is contributing to this issue.
In January of this year, the price per tonne of PET clear and light blue plastics would have been between £60-£130.
With cardboards, the same month shows you could have fetched between £85-£100 per tonne.
Businesses seek to spend as little on their overheads as possible. With that, however, recycling collection companies are more likely to pay for baled cardboard over loose cardboard.
While businesses may be turned off by a baler’s price-tag, you’ll have actually gained your money back on baled waste over time.
Small scale actions, large scale repercussions
Every second, the equivalent to one large garbage truck worth of waste makes its way into our oceans.
With this figure rapidly on the increase, the ramifications if we’re not to remedy this are unimaginable. If not recycled appropriately, an astonishing amount of plastics end up in our oceans, damaging sea-life.
Financial advantages aside, baling presses are integral to the recycling process. When choosing to invest in a baler, you’ll be doing your part for sustainability.
One thing that baling presses are often accused of, but rarely guilty of, is being too complex an investment to step into. In reality, though, these systems prove for worthwhile investments in the long-term.
They’ll be saving you unnecessary costs with the added benefit of helping the environment, too.
David Coleman is Operations Director at HSM UK.
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