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‘Tis the season to be jolly! Happy Holidays from the team here at Trashco Inc.; it’s a busy time with plenty of holiday trash to sort, organize, and dispose of, so we’re here to help you keep your business tidy over this manic time of year.
With Americans throwing away roughly 25% more trash during the holidays, your regular waste management efforts just won’t cut it if you aren’t prepared for the end of the year. That’s why today we’ll be sharing with you the biggest causes of holiday trash generation, the equipment you’ll need on hand to deal with it, and the best tips for dealing with the excess garbage.
We’ll cover:
Let’s get started.
The causes of extra holiday trash largely depend on the business you’re in. Construction sites generate much the same waste as they always do, aside from the odd broken decoration for the offices and such. Retail and commercial businesses have a much harder time with the end of the year though.
Most commercial businesses (particularly offices) generate only a little extra holiday trash. Decorations can be mostly reused, so aside from broken lights and baubles or the odd Christmas tree there’s not much in the way of trash. However, there’s a good chance that you’ll be generating more paper waste than usual due to both the holiday season and the general desire to wrap things up so that your team can take their time off without worrying about looming projects.
Retail businesses and commercial businesses such as warehouses bear the brunt of the holiday trash generation. From holiday-specific products being ordered in and disposed of if they’re not sold to item recalls and mounds of scrap packaging, the holidays are easily one of the most waste-intensive times of every year. To deal with this kind of extra bulk waste you need to have the right equipment to hand and a waste collection service that’s regular, reliable, and efficient.
Speaking of equipment…
We won’t dwell on this too much as we’ve written about the benefits of different waste management equipment in the past, but there are generally five useful pieces of equipment when it comes to managing holiday trash:
You should already have regular garbage bins dotted around your business to deal with day-to-day trash; the key is to make sure that they’re being emptied regularly and potentially more frequently during the holidays.
Front load dumpsters are the front line of every business’ waste management efforts. Whether you need a small 2-yard dumpster or a hulking 10-yard unit, these are absolutely essential for storing waste that you don’t want to expose to the elements, or simply to help your site look as clean as possible by wholly containing your waste until it’s collected for disposal.
Roll-off containers are perfect for any larger business that needs the extra capacity to store it’s waste, and for any business that generates waste that can be left open air without posing a health hazard. Whether you’re in construction or manage a warehouse with masses of recyclable product packaging, roll-off containers are an essential piece of waste management equipment.
Trash compactors and recycling balers are only really useful if you’re producing a lot of waste. It being the holidays, we’re willing to bet that both of these will come in handy! Compactors and balers massively reduce the amount of space your waste occupies, meaning that you save money by having less frequent disposal collections and lower disposal costs in general.
Now that you know the equipment you’ll need, let’s dive right into the main tips for managing your holiday trash.
The key thing to remember when it comes to the extra waste generated during the holidays is that you need to prepare for it ahead of time. Having said that, here are the 5 best tips for how to manage your holiday trash:
First and foremost you need to forecast your waste production amounts. Don’t worry about being accurate down to the gram; the main thing is to know how much waste you usually produce and then add extra to account for the holidays. The extra allowance you add will depend on your business, but if you have figures for how much extra holiday waste was generated in previous years you can get a good idea of what to aim for as a minimum.
While reducing, reusing, and recycling your waste are always good things to do, with the holidays it’s more important than ever in order to stay on top of your waste disposal efforts. Whether that’s by switching to digital systems instead of paper or ordering fewer excess products, reusing more wooden pallets instead of throwing them away, or by separating your recyclable waste from non-recyclables, you can save a lot of space and money this way.
Speaking of sorting your waste, by separating what needs to go to a landfill from recyclable items you can cut costs when it comes to disposal and take advantage of equipment like recycling balers to further cut the resources your trash is using up. Having separate garbage cans for different types of waste will let most of this happen naturally via your team throwing them into the correct bin, so you won’t even need to manually sort waste!
Trash compactors and recycling balers are invaluable to managing your trash over the holidays. As we’ve already stated, these can reduce the space your waste is taking up by at least a 4:1 ratio, meaning you can pack more into a single container for disposal, and pay less when it comes to shipping it to landfill or a recycling plant.
Our final tip (aside from a secret tip in the next section) is to check, double check, and triple check your collection dates! Whether you’re running a business or at home with your family, you need to know how the holidays affect the dates of your garbage collection so that you aren’t caught off-guard with a room full of holiday trash and no collection for the next week. It’s a nightmare nobody wants to deal with over the holidays, so don’t let it ruin the end of your year.
Waste management can be an absolute nightmare due to excess holiday trash. Whether you’re a warehouse with mountains of excess cancelled orders, a retail store drowning in packaging, or you just need a little extra help dealing with your share of the 25+ million tons of garbage the US will produce this season, the easiest way to deal with it is to get in touch with a professional waste management and disposal company.
That’s where we here at Trashco Inc. come in.
From our friendly team of experts who are always happy to help you find the best collection schedule for your needs, to our state-of-the-art fleet of trucks and rental units and equipment, we’re here to help Laredo and the surrounding Texas area keep clean this holiday season.
Click here to talk to our team directly and leave the holiday trash headache behind!
