To carry out the selective sorting in its company, that with the simple air, not? And yet, think again! To really set up an efficient waste sorting in a company is far from being obvious. I was confronted with this reality at Cleanfox when I wanted to set it up. I wanted to give you my advice/tips/reflections that I can draw from this experience.
First of all, it appeared essential to me that the household waste containers and the “yellow” waste containers be visually differentiated. Without going into advertising, for the yellow garbage cans, we opted for ikea baskets for the offices and large white garbage cans for the common garbage cans.
After installing them, I notified the other Foxes (Greenfox employees) that the sorting was in place. I also briefly explained the basic rules of sorting. Some of the Foxes then realized that they were not necessarily sorting properly: which was already a victory! The sorting was not perfect overnight. Recyclable paper was thrown in the household garbage and chewing gum was thrown in the recyclable garbage. So I “called the bad sorters to order” educationally and progress was made. I think that making posters/visuals explaining how to sort could have improved the quality of sorting but due to lack of time, they were not made.
Educating about the eco-gestures and sorting
When the sorting started, I explained to our cleaning lady why we were implementing it and what it would change for her: collecting the waste in two parts (household and recyclable) and putting them in the appropriate containers. However, a few weeks later, I realized that she was mixing household waste and recyclable waste… What was the point of asking the Foxes to separate their waste? So I took a moment to explain our action to her.
I think that gamifying the sorting could have made it more automatic and of better quality. However, I didn’t find a way to do it (for example, each Fox could have a malus if he was caught by another Fox sorting badly). Also, one problem I didn’t answer was how to measure the impact of our action. How much waste is sorted? What are we sorting well? At our scale (20 Foxes), weighing the waste sorted or not would be quite tedious and probably not analyzable.
A final issue I want to raise is the inclusion of newcomers. Indeed, when a new Fox joins the team, if he doesn’t know how to sort, nobody will explain it to him and he won’t sort correctly. Again, explanatory visuals could have fulfilled this mission.
I think that a lot of people consider that in their professional life, they have more important things to worry about than sorting. At Greenfox, we deeply believe that we must act in our company to reduce their environmental impact! It is with this in mind that I have written several articles on corporate greening.
