Watch your wasteline this Christmas
December 1st 2004 by Dr Martin Gibson, director, Enirowise Programme
Christmas spending in the shops can make or break a retailer’s profitability for the year.
But retailers can overlook an easy way of keeping a good figure – by slimming down their wastes and making more efficient use of resources.
Shops are responsible for about 12% of all industrial and commercial waste in the UK. Each year they produce around 12 million tonnes of solid waste – costing the sector around £300 million. Typically, waste costs a retailer 4% of turnover – and often as much as 10%.
So making an effort to trim waste can be very worthwhile. Simple changes to routines and procedures can make a big difference, and often a retailer can save waste costs by a quarter, for little or no additional cost.
The potential can be staggering. For example, we recently worked with the Arndale Shopping Centre in Luton to identify key opportunities. Just six of the businesses there, which included the shopping centre management, an indoor market and four stores, could save more than £52 000 a year.
Over half of these savings could be made by recycling. If your shop is sited in a managed shopping centre, such as the Arndale, co-operation between retailers and management can be very productive. For example by centralising re-use and recycling work with segregated wastes.
Retailers have plenty of opportunities to recycle waste, for example by sending returns and unsold products back to suppliers. Every item sent back to the supplier is an item which does not find its way into your skip.
Some simple pointers are to keep a strict returns policy concerning undamaged and damaged items and return surplus hangers to the supplier for re-use. Marks & Spencer reduced waste by 2000 tonnes a year simply by stripping off outer packaging and returning unwanted coat hangers for recycling.
But if you do have to send items to landfill, it is worth compacting it as much as possible – don’t waste money by filling your skip with air.
Packaging is a large source of retail waste – one that is becoming more expensive as landfill charges keep going up, with the probability of some hefty increases in the next few years as the Government brings the UK into line with the rest of Europe.
There are many ways for retailers to re-use packaging materials such as wood, metal or plastic pallets.
But rather than recycle it is much better to reduce and eliminate unnecessary waste. Excess and unnecessary packaging is particularly relevant to retailers and is an issue which is often best addressed through the retail supply chain. Some of our most successful work has been achieved in this way.
Host companies, such as Boots, Safeway or WH Smith, encourage their key suppliers to join them in their waste cutting and resource efficiency campaign.We work with members of the chain to identify areas where they can minimise waste and save money. The mutual support and co-operation which comes from working in this way is a big advantage.
Our workshops and forums provide the ideal opportunity to iron out issues and come up with solutions, such as improved packaging designs, methods for complying with legislation, and more efficient use of utilities.
We call it Retail Therapy! Boots the Chemist was one of the first retailers to sign up in 2002 and in the first pilot year succeeded in identifying savings of almost £350 000. At Tesco, work with Montagne Jeunesse, one of the store’s toiletry suppliers, saved approximately 46000 tonnes/year of cardboard. This was eliminated from the supply chain process by introducing a system of plastic returnable crates which made at least 100 return trips instead of a single journey Manchester United recruited 20 suppliers to its programme with great success. For example, the supplier of catering items, such as serviettes, plastic forks and refuse sacks, reduced packaging and the unnecessary use of disposable items by equipping each of the 25 food kiosk with dispensers for fork and serviettes.
This got rid of single-item packaging and reduced the number of items used overall. The total amount of catering waste has been cut significantly, with obvious environmental benefits for the stadium.
The printer of Manchester United’s match day programmes, Pillans & Waddies, also saved around £50 000 a year, through making more efficient use of resources.
These examples all show how working with others, either within a managed centre, or in a supply chain partnership can help you cut waste for better business.
Visit the web site, www.envirowise.
gov.uk for more information on Easy Money, Retail Therapy and our work with Managed Shopping Centres. Or contact the Environment and Energy helpline: 0800 585794 More articles from Water Technology List: | 
