Corporate Social Responsibility in Waste Management

“I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it, so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it,” - Demetri Martin.

Whenever we start a week, we always walk into our clean premises. However, the sight outside is not always rosy each morning – the mess we always attend to. We find papers lining our gate, a sign that they were blown against it by the wind from all corners of the neighbourhood. This reminds us of the importance of educating staff on how to show love to the environment.

Our speciality is production, but care for the environment is inherent.  We are more concerned with protecting our surrounding as part of those making global efforts to make the world a better place. This has since become an organisational culture.

We have educated our staff on waste management, with our policy based on segregation - which is the separation of different waste types to facilitate recycling.

Segregation prevents recyclable waste from being mixed with general waste and ending up in landfills. We do our level best not to be counted with those that contribute to unnecessary landfills due to failure to manage waste.

Sometimes, word of mouth takes longer to register in our minds. So, we adopted measures encouraged by the South African Environment, Forest and Fisheries Department in its 2020 National Waste Management Strategy to constantly remind each other where and how to dispose of different kinds of waste.

We made use of signage on our bins to make it easy for all of us to separate waste – signage was designed by our in-house graphic designers, printed on vinyl and installed by our digital department.

We have separate, clearly labelled, bins for bottles, metal tins, plastics, paper, fabric, and decomposing waste. This waste disposal method makes it easy for waste collectors and recyclers to collect waste from our premises and group it into various categories elsewhere.

You can adopt the same method and apply it to your waste management strategy. As Richard Branson said: “There is no planet B. We have to take care of the one we have,” let your brand be associated with good causes for the betterment of our only planet. Do not forget to practically echo Jackie Speier’s words: “Every day is earth day.”