CORONAVIRUS - WASTE - 30.06.2020

Why waste money?

All businesses create waste. However, if productivity is down or the site has fewer people working at it than usual, the amount of rubbish will be lower. How do you ensure that this is reflected in your contractor’s bills and what are the potential savings?

Waste not

Many businesses still haven’t realised what an expensive drain on profits waste can be. Reducing your waste, and recycling as much of what’s left as possible, could save 4.5% of your turnover.

Rubbish. There was once a time when getting rid of waste was cheap. It was all thrown into landfill and forgotten about. The landfill tax was £40 per tonne in 2009 but is currently £94.15.

Example. Acom sends five tonnes of waste per year to landfill. This costs £470.75 now compared with £200 in 2009. As well as the tax your contractor’s bill will also cover the price of a bin lift (including transport costs). These costs have also increased.

Reduce

The golden rule is to reduce the amount of waste you produce. To do that, you need to know what you use in the first place. This is something you can ask your contractor.

However, in the current climate it’s likely that you could be running at reduced capacity, either in terms of staffing numbers or productivity. This means your waste levels will also probably be lower, but unless you act your waste bills will stay the same.

That’s not fair. Many contractors work by charging you for lifting a bin that’s full; if it’s not they charge the same but their costs (tax, fuel, etc.) are lower and their profit margin increases.

Example. Acom has a wheeled bin for general waste which will take 0.1 tonnes. Its contractor charges an all-in fee per lift of £50. The bin is collected every two weeks. The cost per year is £1,300. However, after the lockdown Acom’s staff have begun to return to work but the site is running at 50% capacity. This means there is considerably less waste too, so Acom should be paying £25 per lift. But it won’t be if it hasn’t renegotiated the price.

Tip. Check your bins. If they are not full on the day of collection, then you are paying for the contractor to take away air because their price is based on a full bin. Speak to your contractor about changing the size of the bins or the frequency of the collections. This will in turn bring your bills down.

Tip. Whilst the office is closed, remove desk bins and have clearly marked central bins for recycling, general waste, etc. This has been proved to improve recycling rates, which will also lower your bills.

What you’ll save

Based on the example above, Acom shifts to a monthly rather than fortnightly collection over the coming three months. This saves the firm £300.

Bin size Frequency Cost/lift Cost/quarter
Current 1,280l Fortnightly £50 £600
Reduce collection frequency 1,280l Every four weeks £50 £300

If you are charged per lift for your waste but are operating at reduced capacity, then switching to smaller bins or limiting the frequency of collections will cut your bills. In our example it saved a small company £300.

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