Our green fast challenge continued. Tackling waste.

This is our second edition of our Green Fast blog series. Here we focus on how the team got on cutting out waste.

Tackling Waste

Dealing with plastic waste is a worldwide problem and the excessive consumption of the material has led to the global issues we see today. From our highest peaks to the deepest sea trenches, plastic waste has been found littered right across our planet, yet we all still use it excessively.

The increasing number of zero waste shops popping up in towns and cities around the country as well as the growing popularity of farmers or fruit and vegetable markets are beginning to give shoppers an alternative whilst some of the bigger retailers take longer in reducing the amount of food packaging on many of their products.

Taking part in this challenge to reduce the amount of food packaging on the products they buy, Diane Crowe, Head of Group Sustainability at Reconomy, noticed how much plastic is still used by many businesses but enjoyed the opportunity to discover zero waste stores in the area and the benefits of shopping more locally for food. More still needs to be done to make buying packaging-free food products more accessible but the opportunity to learn from those who are tackling the amount of waste they produce can also help lead to making more sustainable changes!

Plastic wasn’t the only waste being tackled during the Reconomy Group November Green Fast; reducing food waste was another challenge. Here in the UK an estimated 9.5million tonnes of food from households and businesses go to waste. However, there are opportunities to re-use and compost leftover food and scraps within the home whilst there are limited opportunities to manage with kerbside recycling.

Nathan Gray, Reconomy’s Head of Sustainability, had the challenge to reduce food waste within his home and used it as a good opportunity to engage with his family, leading to a very successful challenge – even calculating that continuing with the reduction in waste seen during November could lead one tonne less of CO2 emissions per year! There has also been a new addition to the Reconomy office with a new composter on site for food waste produced by staff!

Keep an eye out for our next post, coming soon.