My business recycles! (I think)
Polaroid photos I took + pasted around the GP office
In our experience, most customers fall into one of 3 categories.
The people who know more about recycling than city employees. My dad would be an example of this. He’ll cheerily lecture unsuspecting teenage baristas on labeling bins. These people are counting on you to impress them with your environmentally conscientious offering, and probably want a discount for bringing their own cloth napkin. They’re a small minority.
The vast majority of folks fall into category 2 - they’re not experts on recycling or the environment, but they want to do their best. They look to you, business owner, to help them figure out how to dispose of your packaging. If you don’t tell them explicitly, they’ll just make a hopeful guess and move on with their lives. This group is where you have some real potential to enlighten and change behaviour for the better.
The folks who don’t really care one way or the other. They may have heard about climate change, but that’s it. These people will generally do whatever is considered closest to socially acceptable (that does not require any extra effort). Basic signage may prevent them from messing up the good work done by those in categories 1 and 2 (like tossing a pint of milk into your carefully sorted ‘paper only’ bin.)
What you can do as a business owner:
Call your municipal waste management people (if you have a private company picking up recycling / compost, figure out where they take the waste and then call those guys to get the real scoop). Describe each packaging type you use in detail so that you know exactly how they want you to dispose of each item. For example, in Toronto, you can recycle plastic coffee lids — but not black ones. So if you’re using black ones, put up a sign saying they are not recyclable! Or better yet, get a different colour. I realize this is somewhat embarrassing. But with these things it’s best to be honest and show you’re working to improve things. The city won’t have to triage a billion black lids coming from your business either - they’ll appreciate that.
You’re probably using 5-10 primary packaging items in your business; take photos of each, and pin them to the correct bins. Add text. Make it big. Add neon and striped arrows. Whatever you do, make it noticeable and easy to understand. You can see a few of my amateur shots above for packing tape, shipping label envelopes, and wax paper - these routinely make it into our recycling bins at the office (but should not). I plan to keep printing the photos bigger and bigger until we get it right every time.
Print accurate disposal information on your packaging. Incredibly, there is no requirement to do so in North America; if your cups are recyclable, print ‘This cup is recyclable in the City of New York’. Or ‘These cups are compostable in municipal facilities in the City of Winnipeg.’ I consider putting statements like ‘Recyclable in some municipalities’ almost worse than saying nothing at all; it gives the illusion that you’ve made an effort, but the customer still has to go do the legwork. And the cups still may not be recyclable within a radius of 8000km. Let’s do better!