From the journal
Reducing single-use plastic in the workplace: a practical guide
6 min read
Most offices want to cut single-use plastic. The problem is that the obvious places to look — printed posters, plastic forks at lunch — are small. The bigger reductions come from operational changes that the team does not really have to think about once they are in. This guide focuses on those.
Start with water
Single-use water bottles are usually the biggest plastic line item in a typical office. A team of fifty drinking one 500ml bottle each per day generates around 12,500 bottles a year. A mains-fed water tap or cooler replaces all of them.
If you are moving from bottled water to tap, the change is operational rather than behavioural. Once the bottles stop arriving and the tap is installed, the team adapts inside a fortnight. There is no rota, no training, no policy needed. See our piece on mains fed vs bottle fed water coolers for which format suits your space.
Then look at takeaway coffee
If your team buys coffee from cafes during the working day, you are also paying — environmentally and financially — for thousands of paper-and-plastic cups a year. A commercial coffee machine in the office gives the team better coffee than most chains for less than the per-cup cost of one Pret a day.
You do not need to ban anyone from going out. The change happens organically when the in-house coffee is genuinely good. After about a month, the office runs to the machine instead.
Vending and snacks
Vending machines used to be a major source of single-use packaging, but most modern operators offer products with recyclable or compostable wrappers. If you run vending in the office, ask your supplier for a stock list that prioritises recyclable packaging and bulk-buy options. Most will accommodate.
For breakroom snacks supplied by the office, bulk dispensers (for things like cereal, nuts and dried fruit) reduce the packaging count significantly compared to individually-wrapped equivalents.
Cleaning supplies
Janitorial supplies are an under-noticed source of single-use plastic — sprays, paper-towel rolls in plastic wrappers, individual wipes. Switch your cleaning supplier to one with refillable bottles for common products. Most commercial cleaning suppliers offer this option if you ask. It is rarely the default.
Couriers and packaging
If your business sends out physical goods, the packaging side is worth a separate review. Switch from plastic mailers to paper or cardboard wherever you can, and look at compostable void fill. For most office operations the volume here is small but it is visible to customers.
Office milk
A surprisingly large volume of plastic enters the office through milk cartons. Glass-bottled doorstep delivery is increasingly available even for offices, and works particularly well alongside an integrated milk fridge on a coffee machine. For larger offices an in-fridge milk cooler line connected to a 5-litre refillable container is the neatest solution.
Make the bins visible
One operational change that consistently helps: increase the visibility of recycling bins relative to general waste. People recycle more when the recycling bin is closer to the desk than the general waste bin. It sounds trivial; it works.
A clear, visible signage system on every bin matters too. The cleaning supplier will usually print these for free if you ask.
Reporting and certifications
If your business has to report on environmental performance — for B Corp, EcoVadis, ESG disclosures or larger customer tenders — the operational changes above all show up positively in those reports. Mains-fed water in particular is one of the easier wins because the plastic reduction is large, the carbon reduction is meaningful and the cost reduces over time.
We can provide written estimates of the bottle and carbon savings for a specific install if you need them for a report.
Practical first steps
For most offices, the highest-impact reduction comes from a single change: swap bottled water for a mains-fed tap. It removes the largest plastic line item, reduces costs, and the team usually prefers the water.
After that, the gains come from coffee, cleaning and milk. None of them require behavioural change from the team — they require a supplier review, a procurement decision and a few hours of operational setup.
Where we fit in
We supply the water, coffee and vending side of the equation. If you are putting together an office plastic reduction plan and want to know how much you would save by switching the water and coffee infrastructure, we will model it specifically for your team size and usage. The exercise is free, the numbers are real, and the install is on a single monthly fee.