Major retailers sending just 10% of waste to landfill

The A Better Retailing Climate progress report gives an update on the commitment of the same name which was launched in 2008 and progress made against a number of voluntary targets on waste, water, transport, buildings and refrigeration.

Retailers signed up to the Better Retailing Climate agreement include: supermarkets such as Sainsburys Marks & Spencer and Tesco; Homebase; department stores John Lewis and Debenhams; and the Early Learning Centre.

Under the initiative, retailers committed to reducing the waste they sent to landfill to below 15% by 2013. According to the BRC, the businesses, which represent 50% of UK retail by turnover, beat the initiatives waste targets early with just 10% of waste going to landfill in 2012 down from 45% in 2005.

In the report, the BRC also calls on the government to help drive further progress. Looking at waste policy, it says it supports the governments ambition to make the UK a zero waste economy but to be effective waste policy must address two critical areas. These are: the quality of recycling collected; and, a greater consistency in the range of materials collected by local authorities.

Progress

Looking at waste, the initiative outlines an aspiration for the signatories to send zero waste to landfill, which it says a number of retailers are already doing with more expected to achieve this by 2015. Retailers are reducing the waste sent to landfill through a number of ways:

• Providing clear guidance and good equipment to enable staff to effectively sort, aggregate and collect waste streams;
• Introducing closed loop recycling to re-use or recycle materials or find partners who can re-use them; and,
• Recovering energy through anaerobic digestion of food and other organic waste.

In addition, the BRC notes the work undertaken by retailers to reduce the amount of waste their customers sent to landfill such as reuse and recycling schemes for sofas and mattresses, and improving the recyclability of packaging.

Benefits

Commenting on the results Alice Ellison, BRC environment policy advisor, said: This update demonstrates that the retail industry is going above and beyond in its commitments to reducing its environmental impact across all aspects of its operations. Despite the downturn and other challenges affecting business, retailers are continuing to innovate and collaborate in this space, which delivers real environmental benefits as well as value for their customers.

We want to keep this momentum going past the 2008 commitments, so our next step is setting new targets to build on this progress and continue to invest in protecting the planet.

Packaging

In the report, the BRC said the sector is also on track with ambitious goals to reduce the environmental impact of customers in the supply chain, in areas including food waste and packaging in the home.

Targets on food waste and packaging were set as part of The Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary deal between the Waste & Resources Action Programme and retailers and brands aimed at improving resource efficiency and the wider environmental impacts of the grocery sector.

The report comes less than two weeks after WRAP published a study which highlighted the benefits that packaging can have on reducing food waste (see letsrecycle.com story).