How Reducing Bins Drives Efficiency

In this article we explore why reducing your bin count pays off for those using and emptying commercial bins.

What Bin Consolidation Can Do for Your Operations

Removing excess bins helps businesses to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively. Filling bins is physically demanding and increasingly expensive due to rising wage costs. Condensing waste into fewer bins ahead of collection day helps in the following ways:

• Aids waste compliance Every organisation and business in the UK is obliged by law to store bins in a safe and secure location before and after they're emptied. Councils can issue on-the-spot fines to businesses violating waste presentation notices. By consolidating your waste into fewer containers, you'll have less to look after.
• Shrinks your bin storage needs: Workplace bins can't be permanently stored on public roads or pavements so to keep things legal you'll need a designated bin store at your premises. The size of your bin store is directly correlated with the number of bins you have in operation making the use of fewer containers a more attractive option.
• Prevents overcharging on waste disposal services: Permanently underutilised capacity within workplace bins results in unnecessarily high bin charges for the organisation. Afterall, you won't get a discount if you have very little waste to collect but pay a fixed price every week for an over-sized bin.
• Aids timely bin retrieval: As soon as your waste is collected, businesses must immediately move their bins back to their premises. The process of locating and returning your workplace bins back to your premises is made easier for your employees if you minimise the number of bin containers in use.
• Promotes recycling: Improved recycling rates: Research published by Bath University in 2011 proves that less frequent bin collections work as an incentive for people to increase the amount they recycle.

Bin training top tip: Waste crews must leave commercial bins behind if the waste is contaminated, lids cannot close or extra "side-waste" is presented therefore it's important that everyone at your organisation learns how to fill bins properly to prevent rejected bins.

COLLECTING WASTE, NOT EMPTY SPACE

Emptying bins is physically demanding and increasingly expensive for waste contractors due to rising overheads. Waste collection firms in the UK must implement new strategies to handle waste as efficiently as possible to keep service levels high and remain competitively priced.  Challenges include:

• Rising waste operative salaries: According to the National Careers Service, the typical salary for a waste collector is now £24,000-£30,000 a year. Striking bin workers in Birmingham reminded operators that pay cuts won't be accepted.
• High physical job demands: Waste collection is widely considered a challenging job due to all-weather working conditions, high daily step-counts and early starts to beat the traffic. Reducing the number of individual bins serviced on a route reduces the number of steps taken each day by refuse collectors.
• Logistical challenges: ULEZ and other types of clean air zones add additional complexity and overheads when offering waste collection services.
• Mandatory repositioning of bins: Waste teams servicing multiple bins at the same address must manoeuvre each individual bin back within the customer's property boundary. If a premises has lots of bins, this can slow progress. 

HOW BIN COMPACTORS STREAMLINE BIN LIFTS

The number of bins a refuse worker can empty each hour matters because it directly impacts upon operational performance and route profitability. Asking generators to condense waste using a waste compactor before collection day helps in the following ways:

1. Reduce bin lifts: With fewer bins at each premises, waste is collected faster because fewer bin lifts are required at each stop.
2. Enhances operations: With fewer bins at each premises, the amount of refuse collection vehicle idling time is reduced which is a highly effective way for councils and private waste management operators to cut fuel costs, lower greenhouse gas emissions and prolong vehicle life.
3. Reduces on-street obstructions: Minimising the number of branded waste bins causing inconvenience to pedestrians, wheelchair users and pushchairs on bin day is recommended to maintain good standing within the local community.

Choosing the Right Type of In-Bin Compactor

Investing in professionally installed bin compaction equipment helps commercial bin users to store the same amount of waste within fewer containers. The most appropriate type of bin compactor depends on the needs of the waste generator so take advice from a professional installer like QCR. Bin Compactors from QCR are electrically powered so they emit no fumes making them suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. Free trials are available to prove that even when compacted, waste will slide out of the container during the emptying process.