Recycling in Retail Destinations – Malls in particular

Climate change is a real issue in today’s world and improper waste management is one of the main contributors to it.

Retail stores and shopping malls are responsible for about 12% of all industrial and commercial waste in the world. According to a study, the total amount of commercial and industrial waste collected in the year 2018 added to about 372 million tonnes in the UK alone. On an estimate, there are about 5.52 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean. These numbers are alarming and we should take action to reduce its negative impact on the planet. As global warming continues the pressure on retailing businesses and governments is increasing.

Many governments and retail businesses around the world have come up with comprehensive waste management methods to manage their waste sustainably.

In today’s economically advanced world, where consumers are buying stuff more than ever, it has become the need of the hour for malls, retail stores, and other businesses to come up with sustainable ways to manage their waste and contribute to a cleaner and greener planet.

The Three Golden Rs

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. If shopping malls make some minute changes in the way they carry out their practices, like their packaging or carry bags they can reduce a lot of waste. Replacing plastic bags with paper bags, and replacing big plastic containers with cardboard boxes can prove to be useful. Retail stores can ask their customers to use cloth bags that they can reuse every time they shop. This will not only help the environment but also help reduce the manufacturing costs of plastic or harmful polythene bags. Reusing packaging can also help in reducing the unnecessary waste that some products might generate.

Another great way to have effective waste management at retail stores is to install commercial recycle trash cans throughout the establishment and ask customers to throw recyclable waste into these bins for better waste management. Using waste management containers is the most common and effective way to collect waste and correctly recycle it.

Equipping retail stores and malls with recycle bins and asking people to segregate and throw their waste in respective bins will make the recycling process way more efficient.

About 199,100 tonnes of food waste is generated in UK Restaurants and food courts in shopping centers each year. 51% of this waste can be recycled but isn’t. Using recyclable dishes to serve the food or using reusable utensils can reduce this waste by a considerable amount. When this food waste ends up in landfill and starts to rot it generates methane gas which is released into the atmosphere as a by-product. Shopping centers and malls can find a way to use this to their advantage.

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