5 Ways to Reduce Waste at Your Company With Refurbished Bulk Bags
Polypropylene is a material used to make plastic products, including flexible intermediate bulk containers (FIBC). In 2020, the world produced around 170 billion pounds of polypropylene but only recycled around 1%. When corporations use so many plastic shipping, handling and storage products, understanding how to decrease their impact is essential.
The Importance of Reducing Waste at Your Business
Reducing your material use and waste is the first step in creating a more environmentally friendly business. Reducing your intake will result in less waste that goes to landfills. You can reduce your waste in several ways, including recycling and reusing materials. Recycling and reusing materials offer several benefits, including:
- Decreasing costs: Reusing materials means your company will spend less on essential containers and packing bags. You can get more from your investments by using them until they get damaged, opening up room in your budget. Many companies offer discounts for reused or recycled materials, making them great investments.
- Preserving limited resources: Many plastic products require petroleum or oil to produce them, which are finite materials. When your company recycles or reuses your polypropylene bags, you can reduce your use of these limited resources and save them for other operations.
- Reducing energy use: Creating new products requires large amounts of energy, and recycling processes can be extensive. Reusing materials helps organizations save energy use by lowering necessary production levels. Because reusing means you order fewer new products, shipping companies will also use less energy and time delivering materials.
- Increasing product life span: Reusing products means getting the most out of your investments. Reuse processes often involve keeping them until they can no longer perform their functions. Recycling extends the life cycle by keeping the same materials in the production process. The same materials can last several uses, preventing them from entering landfills while still functional.
While recycling is essential, many facilities incinerate plastic materials to transform them into new products. This process can release more carbon emissions and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Reduction and reuse can decrease how many items you send to recycling plants, improving your environmental impact.
How to Reduce Waste in Business
When manufacturing waste can increase costs and have harmful effects on the environment, your company can implement greener habits by focusing on waste reduction. Your shipping, packaging and storage habits can influence your waste use, and you can develop many reduction and recycling strategies, including:
- Choose bulk packaging: Bulk bags are great options for shipping or storing large amounts of products and materials. They allow you to hold more per unit, meaning you can use fewer packaging materials while retaining the same products.
- Reuse and recycle your packaging: You can decrease how much of your materials end up in landfills by reusing and recycling what you can. Many products require only some cleaning and inspections to reuse, like polypropylene bags, reducing your waste with less effort. Damaged or unusable materials can go to recycling facilities, decreasing your impact on plastic products in landfills.
- Opt for used or refurbished packing materials: Your company can support waste reduction efforts by purchasing used packing materials. Investing in this option can continue to keep plastic and paper products out of landfills and support products throughout their entire life cycle. Used or refurbished bulk bags often have excellent functionality and undergo comprehensive quality control.
- Buy materials in bulk: While bulk packaging can help your company create less waste, your purchasing options can also impact your green habits. Purchasing your materials and products in bulk can reduce the shipping and packaging materials used for your order, resulting in less paper and plastic waste. Because everything from the same supplier can go together, they can reduce the number of materials they use, and you can limit what you have to discard later.
- Select space-efficient bulk containers: Refurbished FIBCs can help you use your storage space effectively. Because their shape and durability make them stackable and fit well together, you can use more of your space with fewer materials.
How to Store and Ship Products With Bulk Bags
When you want to reduce business waste, used and reusable bulk bags are fantastic storage and shipping options for many industries. They are less expensive than other storage and shipping solutions, helping your organization cut costs and allocate funds to other essential initiatives. Some ways you can use this packaging and storage option include:
- Stackable: Bulk bags are sturdy and dependable, so they can help optimize shelf or shipping space. You can stack them on one another, using your vertical space in your warehouses and shipping containers. They also fit well together, leaving little space between them, further maximizing your space use. These options help make them more cost-efficient as they save the costs of shipping and storing materials. When you aren’t using them, you can fold and stack them, using less space than other materials.
- Lightweight: FIBCs are very lightweight, making them excellent shipping options because they will cost less than other materials. When you need to transport materials, you can ensure you are only paying for your products with bulk bags. You can store the bags easily between uses because of their weight by placing them on higher shelves and saving sturdier storage space for heavier items.
- Reusable: You can reuse your bulk bags for multiple applications. Between uses, you just need to clean them to your residue standards and check for damages. With long life spans, your bags can serve your business operations throughout several shipping and storing applications. When they get too worn or damaged to use, you can recycle bulk bags.
- Versatile: Bulk bags come in various shapes and configurations to help them apply to more industries and products. Their strength allows construction teams to transport heavy building materials, while their shapes help agricultural companies store and ship compact products, like seeds and soil. Some come with lids, enabling businesses to keep chemicals better protected and sealed.
Invest in Used Bulk Bags With Bulk Bag Reclamation
Switching to reusable and used options can help you when you want to reduce your bulk bag disposal rate. At Bulk Bag Reclamation, we specialize in used FIBCs. Our used bags undergo quality control inspections before entering the market, ensuring they have no defects. When you want to reuse your existing bags, we can help refurbish your materials. We will clean and repair your bulk bags to protect their quality in between uses. After you finish with your bags, we can recycle them for you, simplifying the process so you can focus on your essential operations and reduce waste.
Request a quote from Bulk Bag Reclamation today, and discover how we can help your company with its waste reduction efforts.