One of our first activities towards meeting the goals on our APCO management plan is to take a good hard look at our own internal practices when it comes to food and general waste management within the organisation.
Chris Moffat, our product developer and quality control coordinator, created an internal waste plan and presented his findings and vision to the team, starting with some hard facts on recycling and reuse or packaging.
Currently, recycling of paper and cardboard is one of the cleanest and most efficient processes in Australia with collection sitting at around 73%, sorting at 72% and recovery also at 72%. An area that could see some increase is the local use of recycled paper in packaging, which is currently only measured at approximately 41%. But, as more companies are taking on board sustainability goals, they will start to place keen focus on using recycled over virgin products to meet their targets. Whilst glass collection sits at 78%, meaning that most households recycle their glass containers, the sorting, recovery and local use is relatively low. And, plastic, aluminium and steel are all poor performers in the recycle, recover, reuse stakes.
But, perhaps one of the most alarming statistics of all is that 7.3 million tonnes of food waste goes into landfill each year on average in Australia alone. This staggering statistic means that, with the need to feed an estimated 2 billion more people by 2050 worldwide, there will need to be an increase in food production of 56% just to account for the waste system. Just think of the additional resources needed to do that!
With this in mind, we have assessed how we can make changes ourselves, which doesn’t just reduce our impact at work. Each team member who starts implementing these practices at work will then filter these habits to home. Imagine if every work place did this what a difference it would make to the habits of workers all around the world, taking intentional steps to have a lesser impact on their world?
We’ll share Chris’ tips and progress reports in future posts. In the meantime, what’s one thing you can do today to help reduce the waste that you produce as a company or individual?
