If the waste paper bins etc are now not being emptied, what does your fire risk assessment say?

I'm assuming you're talking about remnants of staffs lunch being left in same waste bins rather than bulk food stuffs in say a retail environment?

Hi Jay,
Not specifically, legislation tends not to go into that level minutia unless the risks are very large (like the nuclear industry for instance). Aslo, chucking a couple of quotes at people from a piece of legislation is unlikely to acheive the desired result and will do nothing for relationships.

Starting at the beginning, what is it you want changed and why?

Hi, thanks for your help.

The workers in the offices in question aren't too happy about it and I'm hoping that I could perhaps persuade the boss that he has to do something. I have mentioned a staff rota but the general opinion seems to be "its not my job"

You could try to encourage staff to put food waste into a single bin that is emptied on a daily basis. The office bins could then be removed since all other waste is likely to be heading for recycling.

Thank you, some good advice

I agree it does sound petty, funny how some workers tend to stress over the little stuff and not give a toss about the big things!!!!

My colleagues and I are based in a large long open plan office with numerous other people. The system of having individual waste bins at desks was replaced a few years ago by one with several receptacles at strategic points. One bin is for general waste, including unwanted food leftovers, while the others are for recycling card & paper and also plastic and glass.

From recollection, the introduction of the system didn't arouse opposition from staff. They seem to have had no problem with taking waste from their desks to the bins as and when required. One way of promoting this is to explain that brief intermittent breaks from being sat at a desk and/or gawping at a computer screen is beneficial. The same reasoning applies when employees have to get up and walk to collect print-outs from centralised printers. As I don't think that people in my workplace are notably more compliant and helpful than people in other organisations, there is a good chance that such schemes could work elsewhere. Another good aspect of the system here is that people have some responsibility for dealing with their rubbish - and separating it into general waste and recyclables, instead of promptly chucking everything into bins beside their desks as they did before.

Though the central receptacles described are emptied on a daily basis, the task of doing so takes our small team of cleaners considerably less time and effort than having to visit and empty numerous small bins as they did before. This probably allows them to do their other tasks more effectively.

Also, our employer (a sizeable local authority) has recently introduced a scheme by which food waste from households, etc., in its area is collected and taken to a digestion plant for converting into fertiliser. (Cities and towns in Germany and other European countries have apparently had such schemes for at least 20 years and think the UK is very backward in this respect.) Thus, it's likely that our office and similar ones will be getting one or more receptacles for food waste before long. It's all part of the grand plan to reduce the volume, weight and thus cost of waste which goes to landfill - a facility which is made even more expensive, I understand, by being subject to landfill tax though I'm not sure of the cost per tonne or similar.