Reducing waste, increasing profits

Published Date: 22 December 2008
CHRISTMAS WRAPPING

THINK Christmas, think wrapping – the UK is set to produce three million tonnes of waste at yuletide.But Envirowise, the business advisory service, is calling on companies to cut the amount of packaging they produce. As well as reducing waste, companies can also save money in the process, the service said.Envirowise highlighted the case of publisher Harper Collins, which has its distribution site at Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow.Collins has already reduced its distribution packaging costs by almost 25 per cent. The Bishopbriggs site – which handles more than 90 million books each year – is on course to save £353,000 by reducing packaging and also prevent the equivalent of 12,585 tonnes of carbon being released into the atmosphere. Duncan Smith, from Harper Collins, says: "Cutting back on unnecessary packaging has been achieved by replacing cardboard cartons with reusable plastic totes for deliveries to major wholesale customers and switching large cardboard envelopes with light-weight corrugated ones."