Meet Elise Rawlins, our Sustainable Development Advisor, and learn more about the important of reducing, reusing and recycling more.

In the recent documentary by Sir David Attenborough, Blue Planet II, he highlighted the truly devastating effects that our plastic waste is having on our oceans. This documentary shone a bright light on the issue that plastic is causing, and since then, there has been an array of campaigns focusing on recycling, reducing waste and using plastic alternatives.

Here at Bidfood we have taken a variety of steps across many of our depots to help reduce the amount of plastic our employees use. These include removing plastic water cups and supplying employees with their own glass bottles, providing mugs for all hot drinks to reduce the use of throw-away cups, and changing plastic coffee stirrers to wooden ones. We also ran a ‘Plastic Free July’ sustainability campaign, which encouraged employees to go as plastic-free as possible in July, providing them with hints and tips on how to better reduce their personal plastic waste.

This week we are running a national campaign in line with the UK’s National Recycling Week, called ‘Choose to Reuse’. The campaign will focus on raising awareness of how to best reduce, reuse and recycle plastic, to help protect our planet and reduce waste. For this campaign, we will be working alongside our industry waste partner, Mitie, to run interactive awareness sessions with schools and children across the country. The campaign aims to bring local businesses and people together, by educating them on the actions we can all take to help reduce the amount of waste in our world. Check out the ‘Choose to Reuse Hints and Tips Guide’ for schools here.

Earlier this year, we released a guide that offered an array of more environmentally friendly food-to-go packaging, alongside a range of 150 plastic-free products, to help our customers make more sustainable choices.

It is shocking to hear that over the past 10 years there has been more plastic created globally than in the past century – and only half of what is used is recycled.[1] Over 60 million plastic bottles get thrown into landfill every day,[2]and enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the earth four times![3]These really are some staggering statistics, making it more important than ever to ensure we think about what happens to the waste from the things we use, and start to focus more on reducing, reusing and recycling.

Recycling is often the most promoted method with little thought given to reusing the items before disposing of them. So why reuse your items?

Reusing keeps many items out of the waste stream and creates less air or water pollution than it would to create a new item. Therefore, for individuals and businesses who want to reduce spending costs and reduce their environmental impact, this is the perfect solution.

Other benefits of reusing include:

• Preserving the energy that was originally used to manufacture an item
• Reducing the strain on valuable resources, such as fuel, forests and water supplies, and helps protect wildlife habitats
• Less hazardous waste created
• Saving money in purchases of goods and disposal costs

It is important that we all do our bit to try to help protect our planet, and choosing to reuse, reduce and recycle should be our first step.

[1] https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/

[2] http://www.container-recycling.org/index.php/issues/…/275-down-the-drain

[3] https://waste-management-world.com/a/infographic-plastics-not-the-only-waste-polluting-the-oceans