Waste is a huge issue for all businesses. In Lyreco’s case, packaging waste is another of our significant environmental impacts. We have therefore taken a proactive approach to reducing waste sent to landfill and to customers. Where we cannot reduce, we re-use and recycle. All of our secondary packaging is 100% recycled.
Lyreco WISE is fully compliant with the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations. We are members of Repak in Ireland and self-comply in respect of our recovery responsibility in the UK, supplying our own calculations to the Environment Agency annually.
Reducing Waste sent to customers
In 2005, Lyreco spent over €1 million on state of the art box cutting machines in our UK National Distribution Centre.
Significant improvements have been gained through the introduction of new box making and cutting machines to the National Distribution Centre. These machines have reduced the volume of packaging sent out to customers over the last two years. To date in 2006, 22% less cardboard from our detail boxes is sent than otherwise would have been. This has increased from 18% to 24% over a period of two years as the commissioning of the machines has been improved.
Our box selection process for secondary packaging of small items not only chooses a box that is close to the volume of your ordered items, but also cuts off any excess once the order has been picked.
Lyreco do not add any ‘filler’ to their detail boxes as this is considered unnecessary and serves only to add increased ‘waste’ for our customers to dispose of.
The added benefit of smaller boxes is not only the reduced packaging sent to customers, but the additional space created on truckers and delivery vans. With more consignments per van, Lyreco are able to reduce road journeys and produce fewer CO2 emissions, thus reducing our carbon footprint.
Recycle cartridges
Lyreco offer a toner and inkjet cartridge collection service from our customers and in house users, to ensure as many empty cartridges as possible are recycled. Virgin cartridges are re-manufactured and those that cannot be are melted down and used for other purposes. It’s part of our duty of care to understand what happens to the product we send to the recyclers.
Furniture Packaging
When delivering and assembling furniture goods in the UK and Ireland, Lyreco always take back packaging, leaving customers with a space that is ready to use. Packing in the UK is returned on back-loads through our trunker network and bailed within our National Distribution Centre. All cardboard is then recycled.
