As awareness continues to grow about the benefits of recycling and the consequences of our growing waste, companies are starting to do their part by implementing a company recycling program.
Companies all over the world are going green, not just by promoting a company recycling program, but even going as far as making their stores and products eco-friendly.
Some of these companies are even involving their customers by offering incentives if they bring back an empty bottle or containers to be reused or recycled. When big name brands get involved it causes a trickle-down effect to smaller businesses.
When multi-million dollar businesses, like Starbucks, make an effort to cut down on their waste, it sends a message to the world that we need to be doing better as a society to sustain the Earth. People want to get involved and if companies make it easy and offer incentives, it’s a win/win situation all around.
Companies Do Their Part
In recent months and years, companies have been stepping up their game by implementing company-wide recycling programs. Some of these programs only have internal impacts but a lot of them have external impacts—meaning that it impacts you, the customer.
Starbucks
In April 2019, Starbucks launched a $1.3 million fund to kickstart recycling programs across the U.K. for paper coffee cups. “The Cup Fund” will support at least 10 large-scale recycling initiatives. It will offer grants from $65,100 up to $130,200, based on individual organizations’ needs, with an aim to help with the development of long-term infrastructure.
According to Jaz Rabadia, U.K. senior manager of energy and sustainability at Starbucks: “For us it’s about three things when it comes to cups: getting more customers to bring in a reusable cup when they visit us, recycling those that are used, and also looking at alternative materials to plastic that future cups could be made from that we’ll be trialing in London next year.”
This isn’t the first time that the coffee giant has made a step to be more environmentally conscious. In 2018 they announced that they will phase out plastic straws from its more than 28,000 stores worldwide by 2020, a decision that will eliminate more than 1 billion straws a year.
Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics
Since its inception, Lush has been vocal about their eco-friendly efforts. Environmental issues are at the heart of the company and trickle through to the decisions they make on a daily basis.
They are committed to becoming more sustainable the more they grow, by using their buying power to drive positive change. They whole-heartedly believe that taking care of the environment is everyone’s responsibility, including all of their staff and customers.
Some ways they’re making a difference is:
- Their Packaging
They use as little packaging in the shops as possible; about half of their products can be taken home with no packaging. They save nearly 6 million plastic bottles globally from selling shampoo bars alone.
- Reduce Waste, Increase Recycling
The total recycled content in all Lush packaging is about 89% (including paper bags, aluminum tins, gift wrap, ribbons, boxes, tags, and inserts). That means that for every ton of material bought, nearly the same amount comes from recycled sources.
- And Reduce Amount of Energy Spent
They are trying to make their processes more energy efficient, getting staff to switch off, replacing less efficient equipment, generating some of their own energy on-site and increasing insulation.
Sephora
The Sephora Sustainability Leadership Council and Green Team educates employees so they can share knowledge and put sustainable activities into practice at every level of the company, including starting a company recycling program.
Their sustainability efforts begin with the leaders inside Sephora. Together, they map the course for their areas of focus which is suppliers, climate, and ecodesign.
Ecodesign is how they reduce waste in their stores and from their packaging. By embracing efficient design, and encouraging the brands they carry to do the same, they save resources while incorporating recyclable materials. In 2018, 4.4 million pounds of waste was diverted from landfills because of Sephora’s efforts.
GLE Scrap Metal Recycling
If your company is ready to make a difference through recycling contact GLE Scrap Metal to set up a company recycling program to recycle scrap metal. When it’s time to get rid of displays or old metal shelving, GLE has the tools to help businesses do it in an environmentally-friendly way.
GLE Scrap Metal is a premier scrap metal recycler that performs environmentally-friendly processing and recycling of all base and precious metals. We purchase, process, and re-integrate all recyclable base metals.
To find out more contact us or call us at 855-727-2788.
