Going Green - Our Effort to become Sustainable

North East Trophies Sustainable Trophy Awards

As a small business, we see first hand, the amount of waste that is produced by businesses such as ours everyday.  We can only imagine how much waste larger companies produce. 

That's why we are very aware that we need to do our part to reduce waste, become more sustainable and protect the environment for future generations.

Over the past few years, we have began to implement some measures to reduce our waste.

Packaging: Loosefill

We have reduced the amount of loosefill we use, and we now source biodegradeable loosefill packing peanuts.  They are made of corn starch and you can actually eat them, but we wouldn't advise it.  To recycle them you can reuse them or simply add them to water and they will dissolve.

Packaging: Bubblewrap

We have substituted most of our bubble wrap for void fill recycled paper, and the bubble wrap we do still use can be recycled in normal recycle bins.

Packaging: Tape

We are transitioning to paper tape from plastic tape

Packaging: Boxing

Staff Processing Orders

For boxing, we use book wrap mailers or cardboard boxes which are 100% recyclable,  We also try to upcycle our old cardboard boxes that our suppliers have sent our parcels in.  So if you sometimes receive a cardboard box with unusual branding on them, this is why.  They are perfectly good so we think its better to use them again and get more use out of them. 

You can reuse them aswell, if you've got kids (or not) they're great for crafting, use your imagination and repurpose them.  We give half of our unuseable boxes to a local school who use them with the children in lessons for crafting and building things.

 

Children Playing in cardboard boxes

 

We realise that we still have a lot to do.  Our plan is to begin to responsibly source some of our products from closer to home, to reduce the effect, long distance shipping has on the environment.  This is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis. 

Additionally we are also in the process and have already began to roll new ranges of trophies made from sustainably sourced materials.  Our glass awards are fully recyclable, and our newest sustainable trophy ranges are made from eco-friendly and sustainable bamboo wood. 

As of now, approximately 90% of our waste as a business is recycled but we are aiming for 100%.  We are at the mercy of our local recycling companies for the remaining 10%.

Becoming more environmentally sustainable is important to us as a small business. We're not there yet, but we are starting with small steps.


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