Recycle for Cornwall
The Recycle for Cornwall campaign has been developed to raise public awareness of recycling and to provide consumers with a compelling reason to recycle.

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  Waste Minimisation - at work  

Introduction

The Bad News:

Waste typically costs companies 4.5% of turnover. (Envirowise)

The Good News:

A good waste minimisation programme can save up to 1% of turnover.

The cost of waste isn't just down to the price of a skip collection or the cost of your recycling collection. It also includes the hidden costs such as:

• The time taken by your employees to manage your waste and deal with its disposal.
  
  
• The lost value of the materials you throw away which could have been used in your manufacturing processes.
  
  
• The value of the materials that could have been sold on to secondary markets or reused, saving you buying virgin materials.

All these costs combined present a very good business case for improving the way your company manages its waste and can really help your bottom line, whilst at the same time improving your reputation as a responsible business.

Facts and figures?

Estimates from the Environment Agency's National Waste Production Survey indicate that businesses in England and Wales produced around 75 million tonnes of waste in 1998/9: 50 million tonnes from the industrial sector and 25 million tonnes from the commercial sector. Of that waste around half was disposed of to landfill and 37 per cent recycled or reused.