There was still “lots of room for improvement” when it comes to how much we recycle at work compared with our habits at home, according to an expert. Figures suggest only 61% of people in Wales recycle often at their workplace, with one in five saying they do not recall seeing the appropriate facilities to do so. Providing more bins or clearer labelling are some of the ways in which businesses could make a difference, said waste reduction charity Wrap. But one business had already seen a “significant improvement” at their offices after removing staff’s personal bins, a move that was initially met with resistance.
When recruitment firm Acorn by Synergie first moved into their offices on the outskirts of Newport in 2003, they were producing six large wheelie bins’ worth of rubbish a week. It now has just one weekly collection thanks to increased recycling, including food waste, which was their biggest adaptation, following the introduction of the Welsh government’s Workplace Recycling Law in 2024. “The main thing that we changed was removing desk bins and individual bins,” said director Mark Rudge. “We had quite a bit of resistance to that.
Individuals liked having their own little waster station. “But we put central recycling areas within each zone of the business, and eventually, people get the hang of that. “A lot of home recycling is extremely similar, so people brought those good habits to the workplace.” Office worker Ann-Marie Derrick admitted fellow staff members had found it a pain to begin with, but it had now become “second nature”. “Anybody new coming to the office is just straight away onboard and I think we’re probably quite proud as a team about how much recycling we do.” The company’s environmental manager Anthony Lee said it had taken a few months for staff to fully mirror their home recycling habits at the workplace, and that there had been a “significant improvement in compliance”.
Not all workers and business have adapted to the same degree. WRAP’s annual tracker survey indicated that although 94% of people in Wales say they recycle at home, only 61% do so “very often at work” with that figure dropping to below half for students at college or university. Only 30% of respondents said they had seen lots of recycling facilities at their workplace, despite the new requirements, while 20% said they could not recall seeing any. “It’s still a relatively new thing to have recycling bins when we’re away from home,” said Angela Spiteri, senior marketing manager at WRAP.
“It’s a very positive step in the right direction for Wales, but it’s not perfect and there’s a lot of things we can do to improve.” She said there was a responsibility on businesses to ensure that was possible, “providing the right bins and facilities for people to make that easier”. “I don’t recycle as much when I am out and about, I just bin it,” admits Gerwyn Pugh, 56, from Barry. “It’s routine [at home], but out and about every bin takes a bit more time to work out.” James Jenkins, 30, said he often took rubbish home with him given the limited options where he works. “We only recycle cardboard because that’s our only waste.
“The more industrialised businesses need to do more, because they’ll have more of an impact than smaller businesses.” Natalie James, 47, said she recycled “probably about the same” at work and at home. “Because I work at a hospital we’ve got the recycling categories everywhere, so we have to.” Although businesses in Wales are now required to sort their waste into six categories, collection arrangements can vary from area to area. In the Vale of Glamorgan, businesses use a mix of council and private services, and the local authority said the change has resulted in a “higher quality of recycling”. Carys Stephens, the council’s waste project officer, said there had been a “fantastic response from businesses.” “There’s obviously going to be some that are critical of the idea, and they’re worried about extra costs and effort that goes into segregated recycling.
“But we’ve been doing segregated recycling for a couple of years now, and most people just take it in their stride.” Although Wales’ workplace recycling rates are “reasonably high”, said consultant Rebecca Colley-Jones, “there’s lots of room for improvement”. “It is a new system, so there’s always a period of settling down.” She said that she was sure “we would see that 61% rise”. “Often they can be tourism or hospitality businesses, so they’re having to educate their customers what to do.” Colley-Jones said individuals also needed to personally take more care. “Our home is our castle, we’re responsible for the waste and people are under a little bit of pressure, perhaps from their neighbours to look like they’re recycling.
“Whereas you don’t have that in the workplace. “When people come to work, they come to work, they don’t necessarily thing recycling is part of their job description. She added: “It’s trying to get people to understand that they also need to be buying into the culture of an organisation, and also the culture of Wales as a country. We are the second-best recycler in the world.” She added that the changes had inevitably led to some costs for businesses, and varying collection arrangements can sometimes be “confusing”.
Natural Resources Wales, which monitors compliance on behalf of the Welsh government, said so far no workplace had been prosecuted for failing to follow the new regulations. A spokesperson added that 56% of businesses were found to be compliant in the first two years of the new rules, but it had provided “advice and support” and the majority of non-compliant companies “had taken steps” to address their issues. Millions of bedbugs crawl out of mattresses and walls in huge outbreak ‘People use AI to avoid paying for school photos, but they don’t realise the consequences’ Uni Instagram ‘banter’ account under fire for ‘perpetuation of rape culture’
