Corporate Waste

I know that there are a lot of people that take their carbon footprint very seriously at home, I do as well. I wonder how many people do what they can at work as well. I had to make some changes to my company just to feel comfortable working there. There are still a lot more that need to be made, but I feel like I am on the right track.

There was so much waste when I first started at my company it made me feel sick to the stomach. We will call it Framcan Inc. for the purpose of a name (obviously a made up one). If you have a business called Framcan Inc. the shock on my face would be YouTube gold. Also I am sorry and not talking about you at all.

In my current role as a store manager, I have worked tirelessly to reduce the amount of waste we have on a daily basis. Managers at Framcan Inc. do not do anything for themselves in the sense of going to the post office, picking up supplies, or going to the bank. This would be ok if it was not for the utterly lazy work culture it promotes.

During my training I was shown to just print on new paper and then dispose of it afterward, print display signs on card stock then throw them out when done with them, and to dispose of all of the receipts that the customers do not want into the trash.

I am not an environmentalist in anyway and cannot tell you what my carbon footprint number was before, nor what it is now, only that I have lowered it. I believe that the small things that we do affect the world in a big way, that helps me to remain aware of the things we do to hurt the earth.

Since I stared at Farmcan Inc. I have introduced a strict reuse policy. We use both sides of each piece of paper before we recycle it. Not everyone knows it, but your industrial cardboard recycling bins can be used for paper as well. As long as you put the paper into a clear bag(recyclable), you can just toss it into the cardboard bin, and they will recycle it for you.

We started under that same policy recycling all of the receipts that the customers did not take. We also have a stand of multiple shelves that we keep our display signs on so that we can reuse them until the price changes, or they are no longer in good shape. After that we cut them in half and use them as a note pad. Finally, when there is no more use for them, we put them into the recycling bin.

We constantly speak to our reps about the amount of plastic they use to wrap their products. While the environmentalists are looking the other way the people who supply my industry with products are creating an epidemic of plastic. The way they do things is overly wasteful for example, they will take 12 cans, package them in cardboard, take 2 cases and put them in a cardboard flat, and then wrap the whole thing in plastic. The most frightening thing about it is that the industry is full of people that just throw this plastic in the garbage.

We use earth friendly cleaning products as much as we can. Our floor cleaner and toilet cleaner are both earth friendly (a change I made as well). With Covid-19 wreaking havoc, we do have to use some products that I am not sure about, but we try to make a difference there as well. We refill out plastic hand sanitizer pumps from a big jug and we recycle the alcoholic wipes.

The amount of waste that big companies produce is appalling. I hope that everyone finds a way to reduce, reuse, and recycle at work just like they do at home.