The Little Things Can Also Make A Big Difference

The ‘war on plastic’ reached a new milestone last weekend when the world-renowned Glastonbury music festival hailed the success of eliminating the use of one million single-use water bottles, underlined by an appearance on the main stage by eco-legend Sir David Attenborough.

Large-scale efforts to halt the tide of waste ending up in our seas, or those highlighting the destruction of the rainforest, can seem overwhelming however when we consider what we can do at a micro, householder or employer level.

Recycling bins have been commonplace in most offices for years and at home we’re used to diligently sorting through our rubbish to separate general waste from bottles, cans and plastic. But is it enough? And is it really having an impact?

Two years ago we introduced recycling at Zen to avoid the masses of printing that we do ending up in our general waste. With that, we were also able to start recycling plastics. If we’re honest, it took a short time to adjust (each desk would need two bins, one for paper; staff questioned what could and couldn’t be recycled; and of course someone had to take responsibility for leaving the new recycling bin out for collection!). If we’re even more honest it could be argued some members of the team saw the value more than others (naming no names…).

So it was reassuring to log on to the Veolia Customer Portal recently and be presented with a visual representation of our recycling totals to date. It’s a fairly new tool that really helps to underline the importance of repeated commitment to being as green as we can.

While not masses, as we’re not a large company, since we started recycling we have sent 0.351 tonnes of waste to be recycled. That’s paper, cardboard and plastic that would have otherwise gone to landfill.

The best bit about being able to visualise our total is that we can see that up to now, we have recycled the same weight of waste equivalent to the size of a small horse. And we’re a quarter of the way to taking a small family car off the road 😊

Small steps perhaps, certainly not as grand as avoiding the use of one million plastic bottles - and unlikely we’ll receive a visit from Lord Attenborough himself - but nevertheless, it’s good to know we’re doing our bit.

Featured image courtesy bbc.co.uk/news