This guide is aimed at the person who is responsible for managing the waste at your workplace or site. For large organisations with multiple sites, for example a hotel group, you may have a dedicated Waste Manager. For most of the hospitality sector, this may be the be responsibility of the business owner or manager.
We’ll take you through five steps to implementing recycling in your workplace – below is an outline of what we’ll be explaining. Whether you’re a hotel, café, contract caterer, or a quick service restaurant, if your workplace is new to recycling, work your way through from Step 1. If you’re after advice on a particular stage, click the links below to jump to the relevant section.
This guide only deals with non-hazardous municipal waste – the sorts of waste materials also produced in the home. We won’t be covering how to manage or other specialist waste your setting may produce. Hazardous wastes such as used batteries or chemicals must be collected and disposed of responsibly whilst other wastes such as furniture, storage cupboards or stationery can be reused by donating them to charities.
Good to know:
There are a number of sources of information and guidance available to the hospitality and food service (HaFS) sector to assist in the management of these other waste streams:
- WRAP’s resource efficiency guidance for the hospitality and food service sector
- Recycling waste in your hotel- Northern Ireland Business Information has lots of useful information on using resources efficiently in your hotel, along with links to useful sites and waste management companies.
- InvestNI have produced a resource efficiency guide for the hotel sector in Northern Ireland
- FOGwise is a collaborative alliance of organisations from the foodservice and catering equipment sectors, who have developed The Foodservice FOG Management Guide to give people involved in fats, oils, grease (FOG) management roles a shared knowledge about the importance of disposing of FOG responsibly, along with practical ways to do so.
- WRAP’s Guardians of Grub website hosts guidance tools, and resources to support food businesses to save money by reducing food waste
- WRAP has also produced a quick start Action List to help businesses reduce food waste.
- Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful- Under the umbrella of business and industry, has recently launched the Green Key Award which recognises and encourages sustainable management within the accommodation, restaurant and attractions sectors.
- The National Cup Recycling Scheme is the UK’s largest paper cup recycling scheme. The Scheme brings together major retailers, waste management companies and UK paper mills all with the shared aim of growing the infrastructure needed to increase the number of paper cups being collected and recycled in the UK.
- Read the Footprint Intelligence report Can a cup save the planet? Exploring opportunities for reusables in hospitality and foodservice
- InvestNI offer a Resource matching service, which provides an opportunity to transfer business waste, unwanted materials and bi-products from one business or organisation to be reused, recycled, reprocessed and repackaged by another.