How To Create Recycling Incentives in the Office

Bringing your office together to accomplish a common goal can help create connections deeper than business. Teams who deeply understand one another can manage conflict more intelligently, and solve problems more collaboratively and creatively. How to incentivize recycling effectively is key in making these efforts successful.

Use this friendly waste-management competition to promote teamwork, environmentally conscious behavior, and creative problem-solving.

Supplies You’ll Need

  1. Scoreboard
  2. Scale
  3. Recycling Bins
  4. Landfill Bins

How It Works

1. Divide your office into teams – preferably within the same area, since they will be sharing waste receptacles. Each team will receive one recycling bin and one landfill bin.

  • Encourage teams to get creative with how they will reduce landfill waste. Click here for a video about a town that plans to have zero waste by 2020.
  • Start conversations about why it is important to reduce landfill waste. Click here for a video about landfills to educate your office. Creative recycling competitions can be a fun way to engage your team in these conversations.

2. At the end of each day, one person from each team will weigh their recycling and landfill bins, and record their weights on the scoreboard.

3. Once each week, the staff takes a walk outside to collect litter. Team members will combine the litter they collected from outside, and subtract that weight from their landfill bin weight for that week.

4. At the end of each month, the team that has created the least landfill waste will receive a gift. The team that has recycled the most will receive another gift.

  • It is important to allow the office to decide on the gifts before the competition begins. This allows the teams to choose rewards that they are willing to change their habits for.

5. Once all of the teams have recycled a grand total of 1,000 lbs of waste, host a potluck at a nature center. Use reusable materials to eat with, and go for a walk throughout the nature center to collect litter and help digest your meal.