Wow, I am truly surprised at the response my inital post has generated. From the rejection of plastic bags to the cost of manufacturing white goods.

My struggle with all of this is still that what I do at home won't have an impact whilst China is depositing all that waste into the environment.

But even though I do struggle with that issue I still do my best to make the right decisions.

However the biggest impact I can make is in the business environment. I run a couple of businesses and we are starting to look at the ways we can reduce the waste that the company generates.

1) We use pallets, these are reused. Every time we build up 300 used pallets they get collected and we get a small amount back that covers the man power and storage costs of saving the pallets. I know many other companies that have a bonfire and burn their used pallets as it isn't financially worth saving them.

2) Many products come packed in multiples that then need to be broken down before being sold. This results in waste boxes. Where possible (and in most cases) we reuse these boxes to send other product back out to customers via couriers. This save us money and also allows the box to be reused. Where a box cannot be reused it is recycled. We use to have problems getting rid of the boxes. The local tip would not recycle them as they are business waste (explain that). We have now found a company that provides a skip that we fill. They take the cardboard and recycle it. We don't get a penny but its great that they get recycled.

3) All our computers and electrics are turned off at night. Nothing is left on standby. We had a power cut recently (after the high winds) and we managed to run the entire business off a small generator.

4) We make product selection based on the suppliers ethics where possible. We have just chosen our water butt supplier based on the fact that they are now manufactured in the UK. Its great that they are coming in at the same price as the imported alternative.

5) We are also now looking at ways we can reduce the other packaging methods that we are using. We need to use less bubble wrap to protect products. For around £4k we can purchase an industrial cardboard shredder. It will allow us to turn the cardboard that we do recycle at the moment directly into packing material. We will therefore use less bubble and the shredded cardboard can be either recycled by the consumer or composted.

6) By the very nature of our business we only sell well made reliable products. We couldn't sell poor low quality products and still operate. All our items get delivered to customer via a courier so if it fails it become very costly the get the product uplifted and a new one delivered. A product failure rate has to be under 4%. If its greater than this then we withdraw that product. You would be surprised at a couple of products that we withdrew last year. Made by one of the best know names in the UK, failure rate was too high, ends up it was made in a factory in Asia.

We are also looking at other measures and we have been looking at government grants but it doesn't appear to be an area that the government are rewarding at the moment.

Ainsley
www.garden4less.co.uk