Reducing waste makes good business sense. Waste costs time, money and the environmental impacts are huge. Taking time to look at where your business generates waste can help you identify opportunities to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
Consider everything that you bring into your business – equipment, raw materials, food, packaging, consumables – and ask your staff for ideas on ways to reduce the potential waste generated by these items.
Not having the waste in the first place is the easiest way to save. The next step is to identify if there is any way that the items can be reused (or replaced with an item that could be reused over and over). The final step is to make sure that the waste generated can be effectively recycled rather than going to landfill.
Food businesses that are making a difference in the way they manage their energy consumption are well on the way to being eligible for the Best Bites program.
Plastic is a big problem. With the Victorian Government implementing a ban on certain single-use plastic items from February 2023, businesses need to consider carefully what plastics they use, how they use them and what else they could use instead. Some simple tips.
Find more resources from the Victorian Government to help your business understand and comply with the ban.
Visit cleanup.org.au to learn more about cutting down your food waste.
Find out how to reduce food waste in your restaurant with these 10 easy tips from the Australian Institute of Food Safety.
It can be surprising to do a spot check and see what old chemicals, paint and cleaning products are lying around your business.
What do you do when you upgrade your computer system, the fridge dies, or the microwave needs replacing?
A Reduce, Reuse, Recycle approach will connect your business to your community while you save time, money, and reduce your environmental impact.
In Australia, 7.6 million tonnes of food is wasted every year – destroying our environment and costing the economy $36.6 billion annually.
OzHarvest can collect: All perishable food / frozen food (including dairy, fish and meat, fresh juice) which is on or before its ‘use by date’ as long as it is still fit for human consumption; all non-perishable food even if it is up to 3 months past its ‘best before date’. Find out how to become an OzHarvest food donor.
Victoria’s container deposit scheme(CDS) started in 2023. The scheme rewards Victorians with a 10-cent refund for every eligible can, carton and bottle they return. Find out how your business can gain financial benefits from this scheme through a partnership with Return-It.
Did you know, your waste can regenerate our reefs?
Building on the large-scale shellfish restoration efforts already underway in Port Phillip, OzFish Unlimited and the Shire are teaming up to turn discarded oyster, scallop and mussel shells into a valuable resource for our local waters.
With a new recycling site in Flinders, shells from partnering businesses will be collected, cleaned, and returned to the sea, providing a habitat for new marine life. OzFish Unlimited will deliver you a bin, arrange your weekly pick up, and recycle those shells into new reefs. Register your interest.
Soap Aid is a not-for-profit organisation committed to saving children’s lives through improved hygiene while positively impacting the environment.
Did you know that travellers and hotels throw away about five million bars of waste or unused soap every day across the globe? Not only does discarded soap end up in overflowing landfills, it directly affects our precious environment.
Recognising this waste and in response to the growing and critical need for soap, Soap Aid developed its Hotel to Hands’ Program.
We collect, sort, clean and reprocess hotel soap into fresh, hygienic soap bars for distribution to targeted communities around the world. Every little bar that is sent to us for recycling is reprocessed and sent out to vulnerable communities in Australia, New Zealand and overseas.
Are you ready to donate your waste soap? Join the Hotel to Hands program. Find out more and get involved.
Half of the 9,000 children that are estimated to die from diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia every day in our poorest countries could be saved by the routine use of handwashing with soap. – Professor Martyn Jeggo, School of Medicine, Deakin University
The Trim Your Bin program is for local businesses looking to reduce waste, save costs, and protect the environment. Through the program, businesses can reduce their waste, save time and money, and contribute to a more circular and sustainable local economy.
Reviewed and updated March 2026
