Packaging Or Just Garbage Waiting To Happen?
The question is what to do about this ever increasing mountain of waste?
As you can imagine, Hazchem Safety Ltd (like many other businesses) generates a significant amount of waste packaging each day, receiving into our warehouse hundreds of parcels each day.
These parcels come in all forms, from the smallest envelope to large pallets and everything in between.
The Question to answer…
The question is what to do about this ever-increasing mountain of waste? We are all bombarded with information about “reuse-reduce-recycle” but in reality, all waste materials are not the same and there is no single channel in which we can send all our excess packaging without compromise. As such we have had to adapt the way that we think to ensure the most environmental methods are used without adding massive expense to our operations and ultimately passing this on to our customers.
How we deal with our Waste Packaging
Over the last 5 years we have been developing the methods of disposal and now have several streams running in tandem.
Cardboard
All or cardboard waste is sorted together (around 5000kg per month alone) and taken away by a local business for recycling. This is for the most part turned back into paper or cardboard products for further use within the packaging cycle. This method was chosen as not only is the business that transfers the waste local to the Hazchem Warehouse, but the recycling plant is also less than 20 miles away thus saving on fuel used for transportation.
Polythene
Recyclable polythene is all baled on-site and accumulated for batch recycling back into polythene products.
Pallets
Waste pallets follow yet another stream with these being collected and then chipped for use in a variety of applications including materials for children’s playground floors or being pressed into chipboard for upcycling into the building industry.
The results of these changes
By making these changes we have as a company been able to reduce our landfill waste to just a fraction of what it was just 5 years ago and we are constantly exploring new avenues to make further savings on what we can recycle back into the system rather than sending to ground.
Hazchem Packaging
We are also aware that you, our customers are facing the same daily challenges with your waste. For this reason, all our own branded cartons are a minimum of 70% recycled cardboard and the remainder is from FSC certified board meaning that it meets stringent rules on its manufacture. We positively encourage our customers to reuse our cartons for their own use, but where this is not possible you can have peace of mind knowing that all our cartons are 100% recyclable and that this facility is widely available throughout the UK.
Further improvements for the future
Cardboard
To further reduce the impact that we make on the environment, we are currently working with our packaging manufacturer to reduce the amount of new board used on our cartons and hope that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to report that we are using 100%, recycled board.
Plastic
To further our commitment to reducing waste packaging we are looking at ways to reduce single-use plastics throughout our business. It is also important to note that even our polythene bags are all made from recycled materials, and many of the bags that we use are now made from biodegradable materials.
The situation with the recycling of polythene not being fully available in all areas of the UK is a concern to Hazchem. For this reason, we are researching many new options for these products including the possibility of switching these to a plant-based material that is both suitable for packaging and also being fully compostable.
If you would like more information about this please do not hesitate to get in touch, we would be happy to help.