What are most businesses throwing away?
Primarily paper, mostly through businesses’ daily administrative functions and dealings with customers. But there are other things as well, depending on the size and type of business. It’s not unusual for manufacturers and warehouses to have plastics comprise 25 percent of their waste stream. While it is less for retail (8 percent) and offices (6 percent), that is still a tremendous amount of plastic that ends up in our landfills. As another example, in 1991 an estimated 30 million toner cartridges were sold for laser printers and personal computer copiers. Nearly 86 percent of them were used once and thrown away, creating enough plastic waste to stretch halfway around the world. Today, businesses commonly recycle toner cartridges, saving money and reducing waste at the same time.
