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The first step to managing your waste is to learn more about it. Find out where waste is being created, and what you can do to reduce volumes. See if there's anything you can re-use - it's not unusual for companies to be paying to throw away old boxes from incoming goods, and buying new ones just to move work in progress around. Find out what you are throwing away and what could be recycled.
The main material purchased by any printer is paper. It's also the area where there's most scope for saving costs from material waste - Envirowise and Vision in Print have some good case studies to give you ideas. Printers traditionally recycle paper and plates, but you could also be getting money for other materials as well.
When recycling, it's important to remember that you are selling a raw material, and the price you get depends on the quality. Properly segregated, baled, uncontaminated materials command premium prices. Mixed materials have a lower value, and contamination reduces value - just one piece of black plastic in your bale of high value clear plastic can make a big difference to the price you get. Sorting waste paper into printed and unprinted will allow you to get best value for the unprinted paper.
Baling and compacting are particularly important to recyclers of materials like cardboard, plastic and paper trimmings, as they are very bulky otherwise and their carriers would just be transporting air rather than useful material.
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