Lyreco Sustainable Development Report
RECYCLING CAMPAIGN GETS FAITHFUL FOLLOWER AT LYRECO
If any company in Shropshire is going to know how much waste they produce, it’s going to be Lyreco, one of the UK’s largest stationery suppliers. Having actively recycled and reduced their contribution to landfill for a number of years, the company has achieved some impressive targets and now recycles approximately 83% of its waste. However, not content with that, Lyreco recently undertook a waste audit to see what could be done better or differently to improve their figures further and the benefits are already being seen.
In October Lyreco’s recycling went up to 86.4%. The company also recycled 8 tonnes of paper as opposed to their usual 1 tonne. The increase came about as a direct result of the audit, having changed to a waste partner to one that would take envelopes, magazines and pamphlets.
Following the audit, the company has also introduced a new staff recycling scheme at its Telford Head Office with some rather unusual figureheads - Recy-Clyde and his faithful dog Bin-Go.
Julie England, Quality, Security and Environment Manager for the company explains; “While the two characters we’ve created are a bit of fun and a visual focus our new recycling campaign they do have a serious message to convey. They are both made out of products we can recycle here at Lyreco; including the stationery we use ourselves everyday and the plastic drinks bottles from our vending machines.”
She continued: “Earlier this year we carried out a comprehensive waste audit as part of our ongoing commitment to the environment. This gave us an updated picture of the amount of waste we were sending to landfill and this information has now been passed onto staff in the form of a document and posters, setting out how the company will reduce these levels.”
In fact, even with its impressive recycling record Lyreco found they were still sending between 11-17 tonnes of waste to landfill every month. Julie added: “We’re deliberately open about this figure because it acts as a marker and we know we can reduce it further.”
The waste document contains guidance on how staff can help to reduce the amount of waste they create, for example, it asks them to really consider whether they need to print out emails or throw away a piece of paper that has hardly been used.
However, the company has also set some recycling rules. A number of general waste bins have been removed to encourage recycling, all plastic cups will now have to be recycled and as will cans after they have been crushed - no more cups or cans are allowed in general waste bins.
Landfill statistics for the UK are staggering. Every year we produce 343 million tonnes of waste, 73% of which currently goes to landfill, even though 90% of it is recoverable, i.e. can be recycled, composted or used to generate energy.
To give this a visual image in less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall. That’s enough waste every 8 months to fill Lake Windermere, the largest lake in England. And in just 9 years’ time, all of the UK’s landfill sites will be FULL…
Julie concluded: “The changes have been warmly received by staff at Lyreco; like most of us they have been amazed and alarmed at the UK statistics and want to do their bit. We were proud of what we were doing already, but recognise we can do more. We’ve certainly provided staff with the means to make a difference - and should anyone forget their responsibilities, our cleaners will be checking bins to ensure we stay on the recycling track.
