Waste and recycling

Recycling on siteRecycling on site Although we have worked hard to harvest solar power and Queensland's often abundant rainfall, we want every aspect of our business to be sustainable and that includes waste and recycling.

First and foremost we have reduced our use by developing electronic reporting procedures saving a total of 32,605 sheets of paper per annum since 2000—equalling savings of 10,868 litres of water and 352Kg of CO2 /annum.

Secondly, we always reuse everything we can, including:

  • plastic nursery trays, cardboard packing boxes and plant sleeves for shipping
  • steel from demolished structures in building display benching and fencing.

This is not only a practice with positive environmental outcomes, it makes good business sense.

In 2010 though, we decided to take this further by reviewing our waste collection and analysing the composition of our bins. We found that with small changes in our practices we could significantly reduce our waste sent to landfill.

Now, on our Chandler site we separate all recyclables:

  • paper, cardboard, plastics, glass and steel–for collection
  • compost food scraps and lawn clippings—and use them in our gardens.

By implementing these changes, in 2011 we halved our waste sent to landfill—equivalent to 230 wheelie bins annually. Today we are on our way to cutting 70% of our waste sent to landfill.

Our target now is to be a zero footprint business by end of 2025—zero water, zero power and zero waste.