How to Recycle Banners and Other Large Format Print

Banners are an important part of your printed marketing campaigns and are a super effective way of promoting your business. However, they can prove to be quite unsustainable and not the most environmentally friendly form of advertising if done badly. Vinyl banners are often used for short periods of time and can quickly become outdated, should you release a new product or campaign.

This post will outline various tips and ways of how you can recycle your vinyl banners and other large format print.

where banners end up when we don't recycle is landfill

 

The Different Ways of Recycling Used Vinyl Banners

Why Not Reuse Your Old Banners?

What’s the point in buying new banners for every event? It’s a waste of time, money and can be pretty harmful to the environment.

Reuse them and take them to various events. And remember, just because you’re not binning it doesn’t mean that you aren’t recycling!

During your next design phase for a campaign using printed banners, try and put together a design which can be used across multiple campaigns. To do this:

 

  • Avoid including dates or years on your banners. Use leaflets and digital messaging for that instead.
  • Stick to brand promotion content, only, on banners rather than campaign or event specific messaging.
  • If you want to include event or date specific content on a banner, try having a dedicated area which can have fresh content stuck onto it each time.
  • Use a combination of different banners and just change the central one from campaign to campaign. For example, three banners working in tandem, but two of them are campaign-neutral.

 

Business Waste Recycling Collection

Recycling collection from your office is perfect for both the business and the environment. You don’t have to take time out of your busy schedule to nip down to the local recycling centre as it’ll be picked up from your front door. The hard work is done by the collectors who you can trust to dispose of properly in a safe, Eco-friendly manner.

A strict recycling scheme is crucial. If they aren’t, there’s a good chance they’ll end up on another landfill site contributing to the mass waste and further harming the environment. Not only this, if your customers know that you’re committed to recycling the correct way, they’ll be more likely to continuously support your brand as they feel like they’re contributing to helping the environment.

Can’t Reuse Them? Donate Them!

Not everybody can find ways of reusing their old banners but that doesn’t mean that they have to throw them away. Why not donate them to local schools, nurseries or youth clubs? They can prove perfect for spare material for arts and crafts. Not only will you be helping them out by saving them money but you’ll be enhancing your brand image with a nice gesture.

 

Make Your Print Project Sustainable From the Outset

The printing industry as a whole isn’t regarded as the most sustainable or environmentally friendly. So, it’s important that you think about sustainability throughout your project, not just when it comes to the time to recycle your project or pass it on. There are various ways you can make your project more sustainable and these are:

 

  • Adopt a strict recycling scheme within your business.
  • Promote the re-use of equipment. It doesn’t need to be new all the time, that would be a waste of materials and money.
  • Opt for multiple use designs rather than having five different banners for each campaign.
  • Use recyclable materials.

It’s not just your projects that should benefit from becoming more sustainable, but also the industry itself. There are various culture changes too that you can encourage which will make for a more environmentally friendly style for your business to operate in.

Make Sure You Print Sustainably and Ethically

As the printing industry is inherently non-environmentally friendly, you’ll need to compensate by making your business more ethically correct and efficient. There are plenty of ways in which you can easily do this. If you’re not sure what they are, download our free pack below. It contains everything you need to know on how to operate in a more Eco-friendly, ethical way when doing print-based marketing.

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