How Reducing Bins Drives Efficiency

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

How Fewer Bins Boosts Productivity

Emptying bins is physically demanding and increasingly expensive due to rising wage costs. Waste collection firms in the UK must adopt new strategies to complete refuse collection routes as efficiently as possible to keep service levels high and stay competitively priced. Condensing waste into fewer bins ahead of collection day helps in the following ways:

• Streamlined bin emptying: Customers could be benefit from faster collections and the contractor could be finishing their route more quickly if there were less bins to empty on each route.
• Reduces on-street obstructions: Minimising the number of company-branded waste bins causing disruption to pedestrians, wheelchair users and pushchairs on bin day is recommended to maintain good local relations.
• Reduces time spent repositioning bins: Waste teams servicing multiple bins at the same address must manoeuvre each individual bin back within the customer's property boundary which slows progress.
• 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.
• Lowers fatigue: Reducing the number of individual bins serviced on a route reduces the number of steps taken each day by refuse collectors. 

COLLECTING WASTE, NOT EMPTY SPACE

The number of bins a refuse worker can empty each hour matters because it directly enhances an organisation's profitability, operational efficiency and competitive advantage. Waste firms are under pressure to work smarter because of:

• 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.
• Recruitment challenges due to high physical demands: Being a refuse collector is widely considered a challenging job due to harsh working conditions, high daily step-counts and early starts to beat the traffic.
• Logistical challenges: ULEZ and other types of clean air zones add additional complexity and overheads when offering waste collection services.
• Competitive advantage: Waste collection is a very competitive industry and therefore charging a customer full price to empty a partially filled commercial bin can be commercially damaging. Instead, companies can create a competitive advantage by offering existing customers in-bin waste compaction solutions to cut bills.

What Bin Consolidation Can Do for Your Operations

Removing excess bins helps businesses to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively. Investing in professionally installed bin compaction equipment helps commercial bin users to store the same amount of waste within fewer containers. 

• Facilitates timely bin retrieval: Businesses and organisations must move their bins back to their premises once they've been serviced by their waste contractor. The process of locating and returning your workplace bins back to your premises is made easier for your employees if you limit the number of bin containers in use.
• Aids workplace compliance: Every organisation and business in the UK is obliged by law to store bins in a safe and secure location before and after bin day. By improving the capacity of each bin through compaction, you'll need less containers.
• 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.
• Cuts "hidden" waste management wage costs: Underutilised capacity within workplace bins results in unnecessarily high bin charges. Afterall, you won't get a discount if you have no waste to collect but pay a fixed price every week.
• Reduces manual handling: Moving a fewer number of bins lowers physical stress on workers which can lessen the likelihood of workplace accidents.

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 understand how to fill bins properly to prevent rejected bins.

Choosing the Right Type of In-Bin Compactor

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.