Are You Paying to Throw Away Something You Could Be Selling?

If your business produces large amounts of cardboard or plastic waste, what you’re currently treating as a waste cost could potentially become an income stream.

For many businesses, packaging waste is simply seen as an unavoidable cost.

Goods arrive. Cardboard boxes and plastic packaging are removed. They fill up bins. The bins are collected. And every month, the business pays someone to take it all away.

But what if some of that material has a value?

At Marshalls, we’re interested in more than finding you a cheaper price for your bins. When we carry out a waste audit, we look at what’s actually going into them and whether there is a smarter, more sustainable and potentially more profitable way to deal with it.

For one of our clients, that question turned a waste cost into an income stream.

From paying for waste to getting paid for it

One of our clients, Resins ‘R’ Us receives significant quantities of goods, which means it also receives large volumes of cardboard and plastic packaging. Originally, those materials were simply another waste stream that needed to be collected and disposed of.

When we reviewed the client’s waste, we spotted an opportunity.

Rather than continuing to pay to have all that loose cardboard and plastic removed, we recommended investing in a baler.

A baler compresses recyclable materials such as cardboard and certain plastics into compact, manageable bales. This reduces the amount of space the material takes up and can make larger quantities of clean, separated material more commercially attractive to recyclers.

We helped the client source and install suitable equipment and recently returned to see how they were getting on. The difference is significant.

Material they were previously paying to have taken away can now be separated, baled and sold, creating an income stream for the business.

That’s a very different way of thinking about commercial waste.

Our ‘Lil Wastey Warriors’ on top of baled plastic

What’s hiding in your bins?

If your business regularly receives goods on pallets, in boxes, wrapped in plastic or protected by other packaging, it’s worth looking at what happens to those materials once the delivery has been unpacked.

This can be particularly relevant for:

manufacturers and engineering businesses
warehouses and distribution centres
retailers
wholesalers
food and drink businesses
large hospitality businesses
business parks and multi-site organisations

The greater the volume of clean, consistent material you’re producing, the more worthwhile it can be to investigate alternatives to simply putting it into a commercial waste container.

Of course, not every waste stream has a resale value and a baler won’t make financial sense for every business.

That’s exactly why we look at the numbers first.

Don’t just ask: “Can I get my bins cheaper?”

That’s an important question – and we’ll happily review your existing waste prices. But sometimes there’s a much more valuable question:

“Why am I paying someone to take this away in the first place?”

A cheaper bin collection might save you a few pounds per lift. Changing the way you manage a high-volume waste stream could potentially remove collection costs, reduce the number of lifts you need and generate value from the material itself. That’s where a proper waste audit can make a much bigger difference than simply comparing bin prices.

Free Waste Audit & Price Review

If your business produces significant amounts of cardboard, plastic or packaging waste, let us take a look at it. We’ll review what you’re currently producing, how you’re managing it and what you’re paying.

We’ll then look for opportunities to:

Reduce waste. Reduce collections. Save money. Improve recycling. Recover value.

And if we think equipment such as a baler could make commercial sense, we can help you understand the options and the numbers before you invest.