Put a lid on litter at your business

If you're a grocery store manager, you no doubt have employees continuously wiping windows, sweeping up the floors and dusting off registers.

If you're the head of a department store, you have clerks straightening clothes racks, cleaning up product displays and tidying up the stockroom.

Even if you have an office that is rarely visited by the outside world, you more than likely have a person who empties waste baskets, wipes down desks and runs the vacuum over the carpets at least once a week.

How important is keeping the inside of your business clean? Top 10 in priority? Top five? No doubt it's up there.

The point is, you wouldn't dream of having a unkempt business, let alone an out-and-out dirty one, would you? Of course not, customers wouldn't come. Having a clean establishment only makes good business sense. Plus, it's your responsibility.

And while most businesses in our area do a great job of keeping the interior of their businesses and work places clean, the store fronts and parking lots often are a different matter.

Trash often lines the sidewalks. Cigarette butts sometimes are left in gravel parking lots. Soda cups and fast-food bags sit for days before someone gets around to cleaning them up.

Business trash bins sometimes are improperly covered, allowing overflow to fall onto the ground. Often, it blows elsewhere. Construction and demolition sites go without tarps and receptacles to contain debris and waste. Trucks with uncovered loads leave debris on local roads and highways.

Often, it's not the business owners fault. Sometimes, the litter is blown onto their lots and some of their customers toss out trash before coming into an establishment.

No matter. As a business operator, you need to help your customers do the right thing, to be responsible for proper disposal of trash and waste.

Here are a few suggestions to help you keep the exterior of your business as nice as the interior.

• You need a properly maintained ash/trash receptacles near the door of your business that are easily identified. These receptacles need to be maintained and serviced regularly. Have such receptacles at entrances, exits, loading docks and along walkways in your business.
• Assure easy access to trash bins. Check them daily to see that top and side doors are closed. This prevents scavengers from spreading trash around the ground.
• Cover all open loads on trucks leaving your business. Encourage vendors and contractors to do the same.
• Educate your employees about the importance of individual responsibility for a clean and safe working environment. 

Wind and weather moves litter around a community, into the gutters, alleyways, parks and parking areas. In one study, researchers found that 18 percent of all littered items end up in our streams and waterways as pollution.

Don't let litter start in the area around your business.

The best solution isn't always about cleaning up after the fact. Try implementing some thoughtful prevention.

Scott Moyers is business editor of the Southeast Missourian and a regular contributor to Business Today. Contact him at smoyers@semissourian.com or 335-6611, extension 137.