Case Study Corner

Recycled Content Purchasing

Candy’s Apples are an APC signatory who sells Australian-made confectionary. After they received their 2015 reporting results, their team leader Hannah recognised they could have performed better under KPI 4, for buying recycled content.

After reading the APC’s resource on including recycled content in food contact applications, Hannah determines that while they probably can include recycled content in their packaging, there will be a testing procedure to ensure it is safe to do so.

To pursue recycled content purchasing while the testing goes ahead, she also looks into other recycled content items her team could be using. Hannah then discovers the APC’s Sustainable Procurement resource series, including a list of purchasing opportunities for recycled content, and recognises that her team can be buying transport packaging, office furniture and cleaning products that contain recycled content. To make sure their purchasing can be measured, she also downloads the reporting spreadsheet to track their purchasing over time.

For more info on recycled content please contact the APC member services team.

The Business Case for Sustainability

Packaging projects can deliver financial benefits to your business, while achieving positive sustainability outcomes. The APC recently developed a series exploring the business case for packaging sustainability by examining successful projects from eleven signatory companies, spanning industries from pharmaceuticals, homewares, beverage, to retail. The case studies can be downloaded from our website, along with a guide and slide pack template for selling the benefits of packaging sustainability internally.

For more information on how packaging sustainability can add value to your business, please contact the APC member services team.

Completed Project - Yarra City Council

Model Strip Shopping Recycling Facilitation and Infrastructure Installation

The project aimed to increase recycling and reduce waste and litter across six shopping strips in the City of Yarra.  The project has been completed successfully. The approach was through one-on-one engagement, supporting businesses with education, infrastructure and services.

Targeted education guides were developed after a survey of 377 businesses, and visual audit of their bins.    The survey looked at the specific issues for each business around how they handled recycling and waste now, and looked at what future resources could be introduced to improve recycling and waste outcomes. With that information, the educational guides were developed, and delivered to 1104 businesses during one on one engagement.    The guides and the engagement  spelt out opportunities to recycle more and landfill less, with information on what to recycle, and where,  and offering internal recycling bins to make sorting recycling easier, and an extra kerbside recycling bin where appropriate.    Communal recycling bins were encouraged and cardboard recycling for neighbours in the shopping strips set up.

Businesses were enthusiastic about the project, the information, the contact, and the support.  The project worked from encouraging and expanding the great recycling some businesses are already doing, to completely changing infrastructure and behaviour to have a business start recycling effectively.    Businesses were motivated by the environmental benefit, the cost savings to their business and the opportunity to re-look at their limited space to store bins.   From the visual audits, the project means an estimated 607 extra tonnes will be diverted from landfill.