More and more offices and businesses are becoming aware of the need to be more environmentally friendly and work with a more eco-friendly ethos behind them. Recycling is part of this process and as many people spend a large proportion of their lives at the office or workplace, recycling here can have huge benefits to the environment.

We consume a lot of items at work, from sandwiches and snacks, to hot drinks, cans of pop, and confectionery. We also use a lot of recyclable material at the office such as paper, which can be recycled. And by recycling at work, more people can also be encouraged to recycle at home too which can lead to a better environment for everybody.

The key to a successful recycling regime around the workplace is ensuring the staff have the facilities to dispose of things properly, and recycling bins are the prime piece of equipment to achieve this.

A variety of different solutions and designs of recycling bin are available and selecting the appropriate ones is very much individual to each business and the processes and facilities they offer.

For instance, offices that have vending machines often have a glut of polystyrene, plastic or paper cups. These can be disposed of in cup collectors, which can be supplied with or without a flask to allow unwanted contents to be disposed off.

Similarly, a lot of offices have vending machines of canned drinks and these too, have a specialist can bank that can collect the recyclable cans ready for recycling.

Paper too can be collected in paper recycling bins and even documents with private or confidential information on them can be stored for shredding in lockable recycling bins, which will go along way to ensure an office is in keeping with the Data Protection Act.

For general waste, office recycling bins often come in multiple colours. This enables you to have a rule for what can be disposed of in each bin. Plastics in one, paper in another, food waste in a third, etc etc. Increasingly, local authorities are expecting businesses to recycle and provide recycling bins for use, but by offices having their own, the waste can be separated before it has to be emptied, saving valuable time and a lot of mess. Outdoor recycling bins are also available and these too can be colour coded to provide a simple way of describing what goes into each bin.

In order to keep a public location clean and tidy, the public bin is the most fundamental and important tool available. Providing receptacles for the general public to dispose of their waste is vital, especially in busy locations such as the high street, them parks and around fast food eateries.

Simply placing a bin in a public location, however, is not necessarily enough to ensure that the pavements and walkways remain clear and free from litter. Often locations either have bins placed in the wrong location, or not enough of them to begin with, which causes litter to be disposed of on the floor making the grounds unsightly and costly to clear up.

Having enough public bins and placing them in the right location is, therefore, an important aspect of dealing with waste in public locations.

Location of Bins

Placing a bin in the right location is key to ensuring a public area remains rubbish-free. Public outdoor bins need to be placed along walkways where the most footfall is, as those tucked away around corners will be easily missed.

Furthermore, the location of bins should depend on the type of facilities and services that are around. Areas with snack bars and eateries, for instance, will need bins around that are clearly visible, while remote areas with fewer people around and where food and other items that can cause waste are not sold will not be as important to place bins in.

Number of Bins

Ensuring you have enough public bins is also important. If outdoor bins get too full, too quickly then waste will soon spill out and build up around the area. Again, the number of bins is often dependent on the area. If there is a lot of fast food vendors around then several bins will be needed, however, in other areas a single bin may suffice.

Footfall is a good indicator to the amount of bins needed too. The more people, the more rubbish will be disposed of hence more bins.

Getting the number of bins and the right location to place them is an essential part of public waste management and getting it right is important to ensure the public areas remain litter-free.

Location of bins is important

Rubbish bins are a necessary requirement of public bodies, institutions and businesses that work with children. Nurseries, schools and colleges generate a lot of waste and providing receptacles for safe and hygienic disposal is important; however, children and bins can often come into conflict and preventing injury, mess or damage is important when providing waste bins where there are children around.

From a young age bins are a part of helping bring up children. Nurseries require bins, not just to put the litter and waste into but also nappy bins as more and more parents wish to bring their children up in a more environmentally responsible manner.

Nappy bins need to be kept secure in nurseries and play schools. They should be large enough to cope with the waste requirements and sturdy enough to prevent little fingers from tipping it over. A 65 litre nappy bin is a good recommendation. It should be large enough for even the busiest nursery or care centre and sturdy enough to prevent accidental tipping.

65l nappy bin

Nappy bins should have a tight fitting lid to prevent smells too. This is essential and you should never overfill one, either.

For schools, while nappy bins are no longer a requirement, sanitary bins are required for older children’s bathrooms. These should be proper sanitary bins which prevent smell, infection and mess. As for the bins used by the rest of the students around the school, they should be large bins to cope with the waste of a busy school but should also be fixed.

Wall mounted bins prevent the bin from being either accidentally or deliberately tipped over and for areas like the canteen large sack-holders will be able to cope with the high demands. These can be quickly emptied and refilled and are ideal for busy areas.

Recycling bins should also be used, especially for items like glass. This is not just for environmental reasons, either. Glass bottles hanging around regular bins can lead to problems and is best stored in a bottle containers where it, or anyone else, can’t cause harm.

When providing bins for the public, whether you are a business, private organisation or a public body, it is important to remember that when providing rubbish bins there are safety and security aspects to think about.

Rubbish bins are an essential part of any building or premises, especially when members of the public are around. Ensuring there is somewhere to dispose of litter is important to keep the property clean but there are some important aspects to think about when installing and buying rubbish bins.

Hotel Bins often have to be fire retardant

Fire

An unfortunate side effect of most rubbish bins is that a lot of the litter can catch alight. Fires in public buildings can be catastrophic and even if no smoking policies are instilled in the area fires can still start, either accidentally or maliciously.

Fire retardant bins are especially important in buildings like hotels and hospitals where a fire could go unnoticed and spread before it can be dealt with.

Security

In busy pedestrian areas another aspect to think about is security. Bins have in the past been used to hide explosive devices in and a blast in a densely populated area could have terrible consequences.

See-though sack holders are often used in public areas like railway stations and airports. These prevent any suspicious package from being hidden inside as the contents of the bin are clearly visible.

Smells and Mess

Preventing smells and are also another consideration. Bins can be knocked over – deliberately or otherwise – so public bins should be mounted to either the floor or wall. If there is a food-premises around then you need to install a bin with a good fitting lid to prevent smells as this is unhygienic as well as repugnant – flies and other pest could be attracted to the bin.

Sourcing bins for public areas is not as simple as most people first think and if proper thought does not go into the problems that could occur then the rubbish bin could land you into trouble.

Tags: external bin, fire retardant bins, rubbish bin, wate management

Disposing of so much food brings with it many problems but many of those can be solved by good waste management and the correct rubbish bin.

The amount of food that is disposed of waste bins in the UK alone, is staggering. Shops and takeaways dispose of 1.6 million tonnes of food each year; manufactures dispose of nearly 5 million tonnes; whilst us consumers, dispose of a whopping 4.1m tonnes a year.*

Not only does all this waste provide ethical issues, especially when so many people in the world do not get enough food, but also it causes many health and hygiene problems too.

Food waste can create smells and attract vermin and pests which bring with them health issues and have the potential to close down businesses and ruin reputations.

Waste Management

The waste management of food items is highly important, especially for businesses as an infestation of cockroaches, rats,. Mice; or an outbreak of e.coli or salmonella or other infection could lead to a closure of the business – and a fine too.

Ensuring food waste is disposed if is therefore highly important but the waste management of food items isn’t complicated and circles around the waste bins used to store the food waste.

Rubbish Bins for Food Waste

Rubbish bins for food can be classed in two varieties:

• Indoor bins – where food is thrown away whilst it is being worked with

• Outdoor bins – where the food is stored until collection by the waste management contractor.

Indoor bins – these need to be large enough to store the day’s contents until it is disposed in the main food waste bin outside. An overfull bin will lead to smells and spillages, both of which can cause problems. The two key areas of a good indoor bin or kitchen bin are:

• Easy to clean – stainless steel bins are by far the best solution

• Good fitting lid – prevent the smells and odours from escaping

Stainless steel bins are easy to clean

Outdoor bins – need other facets. A good fitting lid is equally essential but it also has to be strong enough to prevent vermin from gaining access; as does the entire bin, if it easily knocked over it can lead to problems.

* (Source: Tristram Stuart, author of Waste)

Tags: external bin, food bin, food bins, kitchen bin, waste bin, wate management

Bins for Business – Choosing the Right Waste Bins
Friday, 18th, June
Written by: Richard N Williams

Waste is a key part of any business -whilst reducing waste can help increase profitability – it can never be totally eliminated and all businesses have to deal cope with waste management.

Rubbish and waste in some businesses is often minimal and requires little more thought than the removal of rubbish from our homes does. However, in some industries, rubbish removal and waste management can be an integral part of a running a successful business and should never be dealt with lightly:

Food Industry

In the UK there are more fast-food restaurants, diners and takeaways, per person than in any other nation on earth* and all that takeaway food can result in masses of waste that the fast food industry has to deal with.

In the fast food business the rubbish discarded comes in two types:

• Packaging and wrapping
• Food waste

And each has to be dealt with differently.

Packaging and wrapping from fast food items is often discarded close to the premises and businesses need to work with their local authority to ensure there are enough public bins and external bins for litter.

Food waste has to be handled differently, however. Food can attract vermin and can also lead to unpleasant smells. For general use inside the business a good kitchen bin should be used. It needs to be large enough to handle day-to-day waste while also should have a well-fitted lid. You may find for ease of use a pedal bin or sensor bin will be prevent the need from handling it.

Externally – food waste needs to be stored in an outdoor bin which also has a good lid. External bins will also need to be sturdy to prevent them being toppled by vermin.

Office Paper and Recycling

Offices are another common business area that can amass large amounts of waste. Generally most office waste comes in the form of paper.

Paper can of course be recycled so a good paper recycling bin or container should be kept to allow the paper to be collected and recycled. There should be some risk assessment into storing paper as it is a potential fire risk. If waste aper is discarded to an outdoor area a fire retardant bin might be worth a consideration.

Large Capacity Recycling Bin

Steel large capacity recycling bins are a good idea for nearly all types of businesses that discards a lot of recyclable material. There are also recycling bins for collection of plastic cups – another common item discarded from business.

Tags: external bin, outdoor bin, public bin, recycling bin, rubbish bin, wate management

Importance of Sanitary Bins in Social Care
Thursday, 11th, March
Written by: Richard N Williams

The care sector is an important but challenging industry. Ensuring vulnerable people are cared for requires a multitude of skills and abilities, but when mistakes are made criticisms can often be scathing.

Hygiene is one aspect where many sections of the care industry have come under criticism in recent years; the spread of hospital acquired infections being one reason, which is why those working in the care sector now consider hygiene to be amongst one of the highest priorities.

However, whilst a lot of emphasis is based on cleaning and ensuring floors and surfaces are clean, waste management is often overlooked as a secondary priority. But waste management is vital in any care sector surrounding, particularly in preventing the spread of infection.

Overflowing bins, the wrong type of receptacle for soiled garments or lack of regularity in the emptying of waste bins can add to the risk of infection or of disease spreading.

Hospitals,care homes and even nurseries need to ensure they have the correct bins and waste management procedures for dealing with things such as soiled garments, used bandages and even nappies. They all need to be stored in the correct receptacle to protect people in the care sector from risk of infection.

Sanitary bins are not the same as conventional bins. Bandages or hygiene products need to stored carefully before they are disposed of and while there are laws governing the disposal of such items to keep them from regular rubbish landfills, there is little legislation governing the storage of these items in the care sector itself.

However, sanitary bins, and even nappy bins are created to ensure that soiled items or products that could possibly contain pathogens are stored safely without risking the spread of disease. They are manufactured with good quality lids and are often pedal activated to reduce the risk of spreading germs through repeated contact with the bin itself.

A nappy bin is often overlooked but is important to prevent possible infection

They are also manufactured from bacteria resistant materials such as Polypropylene which offers limited surface area for germs to attach to.

The size of sanitary bin or nappy bin obviously depends on the amount of items disposed of and the regularity of the emptying of the bin but its always wise to err on the side of caution because of the bin gets full and just one sanitary item is disposed of improperly, serious repercussions could result.

Tags: nappy bin, sanitary bin, service industry bins, waste bin, wate management

Rubbish and Waste – Importance of Landfills
Monday, 7th, December
Written by: Richard N Williams

We are all wasteful. Each year, an average person throws out over a tonne of rubbish into our waste bins. And our rubbish bins contain everything from organic and food waste to paper, plastic and even metals.

Even though many of us now recycle and use recycling bins, most of us are aware that much of the rubbish that we throw out ends up in landfill sites, often referred to as rubbish dumps, garbage dumps or tips. But these rubbish dumps are not the scourge on the environment many of us assume and far from just being just large pits where tonnes of rubbish is piled up for all eternity, land fills are constructed after a lot of thought and consideration.

For a site to be viable for a landfill or rubbish dump it has to adhere to many requirements, which include:
Location
Type
Stability
Capacity
Environment Safeguards

Location – the location of a landfill is incredibly important. Firstly, dumps can’t be built too near to people’s homes because of smells, the effects on house prices and disapproval of local residents. But also landfills need to have good access by road or rail, be cost effective (cheap) land to buy.

Type – Rubbish dumps are built in three different guises: Pits;often using existing holes forged my mining. Canyons; using holes forged by nature; and mounds; piling rubbish above ground.

Stability – Landfills have to be on stable ground. There should be no earth quake faults, water tables, rivers, streams or flood plains.

Capacity – Any planning of a landfill requires enough capacity for the authorities that use the dump. Busy city centres where millions of rubbish bins are emptied every week will require larger capacities than smaller areas where the amount of waste discarded is less.

Environment Safeguards – land fills are built under strict guidelines to prevent as much environmental impact as possible. Soil, water systems and other effects on the environment are seriously considered before any site is allocated as a land fill. And while a former land fill site will be no good to build houses on, in fact, many land fills are often turned into nature parks once they are filled which can off-set any damage done to the environment while the landfill was in use.

Tags: household waste, hygiene, public bin, recycling tips, wate management