Polypropylene is a type of plastic that is used to create shopping bags, yogurt containers, margarine tubs, and bottled drinks. Why add your waste to a landfill when you can separate plastic materials and bring them to a recycling center, or have them picked up from the grocery store that you own? Get your employees and customers in on the recycling action by providing information about the recycling efforts and designated containers for everyone to use.

Don't Contaminate The Environment

When people toss plastic items onto the ground, or even inside of trash cans, they are only contributing the ever-growing problem of too much waste placed in landfills. Plastic waste is ugly, and can contaminate areas where crops are growing, or bodies of water that drinking water comes from.

If you are already encouraging your workers to recycle boxboard products, cans, and metal, adding some containers for plastic recycling won't take too much effort. To top things off, you can get your customers involved by requesting that they return their plastic shopping bags or plastic containers that previously contained food.

Place Some Bins In The Shipping/Receiving Area

Provide several large bins for plastic components to be stored in. If you have a shipping and receiving department in the back of the store, and plastic waste is encountered when items are first brought into the store, then some of the bins should be placed where your receiving crew will have access to them.

Because products become expired on occasion and need to be tossed into the trash, make a new set of rules that involves emptying the expired food products into a designated container and rinsing plastic tubs, bottles, or packages before placing them inside one of the containers that is being used for recycling.

Provide Containers For Your Customers To Use

Place bins near the front of the store, and hang signs over the bins that welcome your customers to place their plastic bags and empty containers inside of the bins. Specify that any items that are not constructed of plastic or that have not been rinsed out will not be accepted.

When you are first getting started with your recycling program, you will need to determine which company your recyclables will go to. Some plastic scrap companies allow drop-offs and others prefer to pick up recyclables from each of their customers. Get into the habit of emptying the recycling bins often, so that your workers and customers won't give up on recycling because there is nowhere to place the plastic items that are in their possession.