Glenisk Organic Dairy win Repak Recycling Award with:
o 45% reduction in waste going to landfill
o Internal recycling rate of 97%
o Paper yogurt pots sourced from sustainably managed forests
o Reduction in use of plastic packaging from 33% in 2006 to 12% in 2007
Symantec expand their sales of on-line downloads to 3 million resulting in millions of euro in packaging savings
Mircosoft reduce Mac Office packaging by 70%
Glenlo Abbey rewarded for their ‘Packaging Free Breakfast’
Wicklow County Council commended for unique Recycling Centre Charity Shop initiative
Glenisk Organic Dairy was awarded the Repak Best Practice Award for outstanding achievements in the reduction of Packaging Waste. Glenisk was one of eleven winners which were presented with their awards by the Minister for the Environment John Gormley in recognition of their environmental best practices last night at the 7th Annual Repak Recycling Award ceremony in the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin. Other winners on the night included Glenlo Abbey for their innovative ‘Packaging Free Breakfast’ and Wicklow County Council for their installation of a charity shop on the site of their Civic Amenity Centre to allow for the re use of discarded household items that arrive at the centre.
Additional award winners included technology companies Symantec and Microsoft. Symantec increased their recycling rate up to 80%, and increased their online product sales to over 3 million products resulting in the prevention of 345.6 metric tonnes of paper, plastic and cardboard packaging. Microsoft re-designed their Mac Office packaging in 2007 which reduced the packaging weight by 70% leading to a reduction of 210 tonnes of packaging resulting in a 30% reduction in number of trucks need to deliver the same product.
Glenisk Organic Dairy has been endeavouring to make their packaging as environmentally friendly as possible to coincide with their organic food ethos. In 2007 they:
• changed larger yogurt pots from polyesterene PS to Cardboard,
• changed lids of pots from PET to paper
• changed secondary packaging to new shelf ready packaging which removed the need for outer plastic shrink wrap.
• reduced the amount of plastic packaging they use from 33% in 2006 to 12% in 2007
• widely moved the remaining plastics from PS (polystyrene ) to PET packaging where possible, (which is more readily recyclable in Ireland).
• Their new paper pots are sourced from sustainable managed forests.
• recycled over 97% of their own back door waste
• reduced their overall packaging waste by a phenomenal 45%.
Glenlo Abbey won the Best Practice Hospitality Award for ongoing a persistent work on minimising the use of packaging and improving recycling rates. They now have clearly marked recycling bins in each guest room and one particularly innovative scheme is their ‘packaging free breakfast’ whereby all food items are ordered in bulk to cut down on packaging and eliminating the need for individually wrapped butter sachets and jam jars.
Wicklow County Council won the Civic Amenity Centre of the Year Award for large range of items recycled and introduction of an innovative ‘Five Loaves’ charity shop.
All waste is collected entirely indoors within a 20,000 square feet of industrial space which sees 3,000 vehicles through its doors every week and its popularity is mainly due to the large range of recyclable goods that can be accepted at the site. One particular unique initiative they have undertaken is to install a charity shop on site to take in any household products which can be resold on to other people who may have use for them. The funds raised by “the Five Loaves” charity shop are put back into local social needs programmes e.g. homeless etc. The centre also incorporates a resource centre for school teachers as well as a conference centre and workshop venue. There are many other initiatives such as second hand school book shop, book & video exchange and a compost display area which make this civic amenity an exemplar.
The complete list of category winners on the night included were:
Symantec Ireland who won Repak Member of the Year 2008, Sponsored by Arthur Cox
Glenisk Organic Dairies who won Repak Best Practice Award sponsored by the EPA
Microsoft for Best Packaging Prevention Initiative Award 2008, Sponsored by EPA
Musgrave Group won the Repak Excellence Award 2008,
Glenlo Abbey Hotel who won the Repak Best practice Award 2008 – Hospitality Sector, sponsored by Rehab Recycling
Thornton’
Clean Ireland Recycling, 2008 Recovery Operator of the Year Award Small to Medium Company, Sponsored by Manvik
Fingal County Council won 2008 Local Authority of the Year Award, Sponsored by REHAB Recycling
Murphy’
Tashinny National School, Ballymahon, Co. Longford, Repak in association with An Taisce, Recycling School of the Year
Tashinny National School also had one particular interesting reuse initiative in their school when they put old election posters to good use by creating a hen run out of the posters.
The awards were presented as part of Repak Recycling Week 2008 at the 7th Annual Repak Awards ceremony. The Awards serve to recognise and commend both businesses and schools that are exemplars in packaging minimisation, prevention and recycling and that are actively seeking to make a difference to recycling and to the environment in Ireland.
Commenting Dr Andrew Hetherington, CEO Repak said “We are delighted to see the range and quality of initiatives undertaken by Irish business and schools increase this year. Over the last number of years we have implemented a number of programmes to help increase recycling rates and also to improve packaging prevention measures which have resulted in financial and environmental gains for these companies. In order for Ireland to meeting its ever increasing recycling rates we need to be innovative in all areas of packaging development, usage, design, manufacture, reduction and recycling.”
The awards were sponsored by RPS Consulting, Manvik, Tetra Pak, Rehab Recycling, Environmental Protection Agency and Arthur Cox Solicitors.
The awards judges were Hugh Stevens of Enterprise Ireland, Andy Fanning of the EPA, Alan Sherlock of the SFA, Roger Gillespie of KPMG, Danielle Conaghan of Arthur Cox and journalist Fearghal O’Connor.
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