What do manufacturing and retailing giants Unilever, Renault, Nike and H&M have in common?
They are all actively engaged in lifting the recycling rates of the products they sell, and the phrase ‘circular economy’ is on their corporate lips as they work to reduce their impacts on the environment.
Unilever aims to shift to 100% recyclable packaging by 2025, to recover more of its own packaging from consumers, and to increase the level of recycled plastic in its packaging to 25%, also by 2025.
Renault’s Espace is 90% recyclable, and all of their new vehicles contain more than one third recycled materials.
Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program has been collecting old athletic shoes since the early 1990s, turning them into a product that is used to make tennis courts, running tracks and playgrounds.
H&M accept old clothing of any brand and in any condition in all of their stores around the world. What can’t be re-worn is recycled.
With large companies leading the way with recycling, could this encourage smaller businesses to do the same?
Great expectations
So, what do the actions of these huge companies have to do with small business?
For one thing, they create an expectation not just of what companies should do, but what they can do.
They set a standard that consumers and governments expect all businesses to meet.
It’s also a fair bet that they’ve done their sums, found that there’s a clear business benefit to cleaning up their acts, and identified recycling as a crucial component in their social licence to operate.
In other words, they’ve done the hard work, and developed principles and processes that all businesses can implement and benefit from.
Easy emulation
Recycling is among the easiest of environmental initiatives to introduce into a business, whatever its size.
It can cut waste disposal costs, and help identify inefficiencies by making the flow of materials through a business more visible.
It isn’t just the old staples of paper and cardboard, plastic and aluminium cans that businesses can recycle.
In fact, before anyone throws anything into the general waste bin, they should seek an answer to the question: “is there a recycling solution for this?”
Finding a solution is easy
If the waste in question is lighting waste, battery waste, electronic waste (e-waste), mercury-containing dental and medical waste, or waste from resource extraction industries, then the answer is an emphatic “yes”.
Not only does Ecocycle provide state-of-the-art solutions for the recycling of all these types of waste, we make the whole collection process as simple and hassle free as possible.
To find out how you can reap the benefits that big brands enjoy from their recycling efforts, call us on 1300 32 62 92 or fill in the form below.
