Sustainability
APCO – Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation Ltd
We’re a signatory to APCO. It’s a not for profit organisation that partners with government and industry to reduce the harmful impact of packaging on the Australian environment.
We are fully committed to finding ways to reduce, recycle and manage all our packaging and waste. We have targets to meet each year and are working through all our processes to see how we can improve, reduce and ensure our footprint is getting smaller on our planet all the time.
100% R-PET Punnets
All the punnets and clamshells we sell are 100% R-PET. They’re Recycled, Safe and Sustainable and are made using plastics that have already been recycled after consumer use from plastic that would otherwise end up in landfill.
Our punnets and clamshells are of the best quality with super transparency and product resistance, plus, the manufacturing process of R-PET dramatically reduces the environmental impact from the manufacture of virgin plastics. Now that’s a win-win for everyone!
Solar Energy
We’re generating around 30% of our daily electricity usage since installing a solar array on our factory roof back in 2016. Of course, the amount we generate varies throughout the year and season, but 30% is about the average across the year.
Plus, we’ve been investigating opportunities on how we can transition to using more renewable resources and reducing our reliance on traditional energy sources. We’ve still got a long way to go but our long-term commitment is finding solutions that benefit our business, community, customers as well as the environment.
Waste Recycling
Recycling our waste – we’ve added cardboard, paper and glass recycling to our office waste management to remove it from landfill. Not only that, all our backing material from our label manufacture is now recyclable and that’s a lot of material considering we manufacture billions of labels every year.
Reuse NOT Throw Away
We’ve given away more than 500 Keep Cups and stainless-steel water bottles to our customers and team members to encourage reuse and refilling coffee cups and water bottles rather than throwing away single use plastics.
The feedback from customers and the team is really positive and it’s great to see our cups and bottles in use as we meet with our industry. The aim with the reusable coffee cups and bottles is to remove about 120,000 disposable coffee cups from landfill and about the same in plastic bottles each 12 – 18 months. That’s a positive goal we’ll keep working towards.
Our biggest goal is Naturpac™
Our biggest and most concentrated effort in sustainability is the Naturpac initiative. Naturpac is a program we implemented in late 2020 with the mission to deliver options of environmentally friendly, ethical packaging options to the fresh produce industry. It’s the result of the need to deliver recyclable, biodegradable and compostable options for packaging for a better earth. The Naturpac mission is threefold;
Produce Less Plastic Waste
We are motivated to drive our partners throughout the grocery supply chain to consider ways to use less plastics, instead exploring recyclable, biodegradable and ultimately compostable options.
Drive a Recycling Revolution
We are working with retailers, local government partners, schools and university research institutes to identify the best ways to educate the consumers of today and tomorrow on the benefits and ways to save our planet through recycling practices.
Think Beyond Recycling
We are challenging ourselves, our partners and our peers to strive beyond recycling. We recognise that recycling is not the end goal and we need to aim for compostable solutions that are focused on the betterment of the earth, every step of the way.
There is more about how Naturpac is making a difference on the website www.naturpac.org