Hopefully, your business is a very productive one. It produces goods or services that people want. But do you know what else your business produces? Garbage. Trash. Waste. (I hope I’m describing the actual waste your business produces and not the products you’re trying to sell to people!)

How you deal with this waste is more important than you may currently think.

What counts as business waste

Any waste that is produced as part of a commercial activity is business waste and needs to be dealt with as such. When people think of business waste, they usually only think about a limited range of possibilities. They think about the truckloads of brick and steel that needs to be disposed of from a construction site. Or they think about agricultural waste like used chemical cans or unwanted vegetable matter.

But “business waste” actually covers a large range of things. The used materials at a hotel. The medical waste of a hospital. The paper and plastic from your average office. If it’s the result of a commercial endeavour, it counts. And that includes activity in a home-based business!

Your legal obligations

You’ve probably heard that the environment isn’t exactly in the best condition, right? Well, a lot of that has to do with commercial waste. This sector has been estimated to be responsible for anywhere from 90-97% of waste and air damage. So as a business, the pressure is on you to make sure you’re sorting this thing out properly!

So you’ve got to make sure you actually deal with the waste responsibly. That much appears to be obvious. But there are a few things you generally have to do before sending something to a recycling station or a landfill. Pretreatment of waste is something that a lot of people neglect to do. You may not think you’d have to focus on the hygienic qualities of something that’s going to a landfill. But landfills are supposed to produce as few harmful emissions as possible. This is why you need to make sure you’re working with the right waste management business.

How not to do it

A lot of local businesses overestimate the ability of the general municipal waste management. (Or, to put it colloquially, the local binmen!) The people who do this as a public service are mainly equipped to deal with residential waste. Homes, of course, produce much less waste than your average business. So don’t assume those guys have any obligation to deal with your trash!

Basically, you are probably going to have to pay a little extra to ensure that your business is serviced correctly. People who want to cut business costs may be tempted to go use less ethical methods, however. Local businesses have been known to engage in fly-tipping, or using other the skips of other businesses. It should go without saying that you shouldn’t be doing this. It’s bad enough for an individual to be doing it. But in this arena, you’re putting your entire business in the law’s bad books. And that’s definitely not a set of books you want to be in!