Challenge Your Team with a 5-Day Zero Waste Mission

When it comes to understanding zero waste, it can be important to demonstrate how difficult it can be to cut down on waste. So why not implement a zero waste challenge idea in your entire office? Here are the steps for a successful zero waste challenge campaign in practice.

1. Start with a normal week

Before you begin your zero waste challenge, start with collecting a normal 5-day’s worth of trash. Have your team take a picture of their individual garbage bins, which will help serve as a reference point for when they start their zero waste challenge.

2. Give them a glass jar

The glass jar is a key component for your office during the challenge. It helps them to see and believe in a zero waste lifestyle. Fill the glass jar with any waste that cannot be recycled, reused, or composted. This gives employees a complete visual of how much is thrown out during the 5 days. Seeing is believing, especially once that jar becomes full. And waste that is larger in size than the jar; such as that large mocha from the coffee shop every morning, it will put things into perspective. For this challenge, start with a quart or half-quart mason jar, which can be an encouraging jar to fill.

3. Provide a challenge list of suggestions

Thinking about what kinds of waste employees can reduce will help inspire ways to save. To help people with their zero waste goals, you can provide a checklist of things that will save them waste. For example, your list might look like this:

• reduce or reuse paper before recycling
• switch to a coffee cup to get rid of paper cups
• bring food waste to the compost bins

4. Make it supportive

It can be easy to turn the 5-day challenge into a competition, but a better team building exercise would be to allow employees to work together on reducing everyone’s waste. Employees can help others by pointing out what can be recycled, or what doesn’t have to go into the jar. Or, people can suggest solutions that will serve everyone, such as a more accessible compost bin in the kitchenette, or getting rid of plastic cups for water. Building these habits across the entire office will help employees and the business overall reach its overarching sustainable goals.

At the end of the 5-day office challenge, your team will be better equipped to see the impact of waste and feel invigorated to take steps into a more sustainable direction. Running the challenge can also help your office decide on sustainable development goals for the rest of the year. For more fun office challenge ideas on building a greener team and a greener office, follow our blog.