Thinking Green Part 13

Review what goes into your landfill waste bags

Here is this month’s article from ABDO’s Thinking Green campaign, working with you to make the optical world more sustainable.

The ultimate aim for all the activities you have done under the titles of refuse, reduce, reuse, refill, repair and recycle is to minimise the waste your business sends to landfill.

Sending waste to landfill is a short-term solution with negative environmental effects. Reducing your waste can save on waste management charges and material costs – as well as benefitting the environment.

February activities

• Have you developed a strategy to achieve zero waste to landfill status by a set date?
• Review your activities to cut the amount of waste your practice or business generates. Look at what goes into your landfill waste bags and think about how you can address each category of items
• Talk to your local council about how they deal with waste: you are likely to need to work with your council to maximise what is recycled or recovered
• Visit the Carbon Trust for more ideas on how to move towards zero-waste-to-landfill

Stay in touch

Don’t forget to tell us how you are making progress towards greater sustainability, using the hashtag #thinkinggreen. Making great progress? Why not submit a case study about your journey to sustainability? And remember to pick at least one activity to work on this month. Then go back and review the other articles in this series to give you more ideas.

This article includes some of the tips that you can get after you complete the ABDO Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool. If you haven’t yet done the questionnaire, it is a great place to start your journey to a more sustainable practice. You can also opt in to get tips to your inbox each week.