COVER STORY


No time to waste


Rubbermaid Commercial Products get below the surface of sustainability best practice. Both corporate stakeholders (95%)1


and consumers (52%)2


are calling for more action from businesses in relation to climate change, and with stricter recycling legislation on the horizon and greater demands from consumers, now is the time for a deep dive into the implementation of more sustainable practices.


According to the waste hierarchy, which according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sets out five steps for dealing with waste, ranked according to environmental impact, ‘prevention’ is the peak, preferable option when it comes to waste management but for businesses this isn’t always possible.


Rubbermaid Commercial Products (RCP), an international leader in the design, manufacture and delivery of waste management, hygiene and cleaning products, explains why ‘re-use’ and ‘recycle’ are more realistic, pragmatic routes to better sustainable practices and should be the focus for businesses.


Durability drives success


When businesses were questioned on challenges to implementing sustainable practices, a lack of sustainable products was highlighted as the number one issue3


.


It may seem that selecting products made from recycled materials is the ‘greener’ choice, and therefore you can’t see a vast array of sustainable products. However, if you consider that 96% of the global warming potential of a


6 | TOMORROW'S CLEANING waste container comes from production4


materials suffer degradation over time, creating less durable products that require remanufacture more often5 unsustainable but costly.


and that recycled is not only


Once you start to recycle plastic, you have to recycle it more often, creating a downward spiral of increasing resource use. By eliminating the need to frequently replace unreliable products that are made from more expensive materials, it’s possible to drive down replacement and operational costs as well as the resource required. This then allows resources to be recommitted to further innovation and potentially to additional improvements in sustainability.


Investing in durable products that can be reused time after time is a crucial consideration for businesses. They must buy better to waste less. Extending the life cycle of passive products reduces the environmental impact by up to 72% and reduces commercial cost by up to a third: a powerful impact6


.


Progress is being made in terms of business awareness, however. In a survey run by RCP, 89% of respondents recognised that longer life products are better for the environment7


, and product longevity was cited as the


most important initiative when seeking to make initial sustainability gains, when set against other areas such as end-of life, material use and system efficiency.


The sooner organisations recognise that durable products are a critical element of achieving both minimisation and


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