Waste

Wherever possible we handle, transport and finally dispose of waste at appropriately engineered and licensed facilities under a strict duty of care. Where such facilities do not exist we use our best endeavours to handle and dispose of waste safely.

As part of our increasing scrutiny of our non-hazardous and hazardous waste production data, we are aware of some inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the reporting of our waste data. A lower than desired level of data availability and accuracy has led to a significant proportion of the waste produced by group sites around the world currently being subject to a number of different estimation measurement techniques. Due to the data issues and variation of estimation techniques we have concluded that we cannot provide a reliable estimate of group non-hazardous and hazardous waste production data. During the current year we will perform a more detailed analysis of the data availability and accuracy, working with our suppliers of waste services where necessary, to improve the data collection and estimation methods for non-hazardous and hazardous waste production and will report on our findings.

As reported last year, Primark built a centralised recycling plant at its distribution centre in Thrapston, UK. This allows the business to collect its cardboard waste, recycle it and return it in the form of paper shopping bags to be used in their stores. Over 14,000 tonnes of waste cardboard was collected in 2011, some 35% of Primark’s total packaging, which reappeared as 179 million paper shopping bags. We estimate that 160,000 road freight miles per year are being saved through this process. Following this success we are looking to develop a closed loop system for recycling our plastic coat hangers, of which 2,100 tonnes are collected and recycled annually in the UK, to use in our stores.

The quantity of packaging used in our products since 2010 has increased by 8% from 233,000 tonnes to 252,000 tonnes. This increase is mainly attributable to increased production volumes in our China sugar operations; in Twinings Ovaltine; and other businesses where increased production resulted in the need for more packaged product. Despite this increase, we are still producing less packaging waste than 2008 and 2009 levels and some businesses, including Primark and Silver Spoon, have reduced the amount of packaging waste by half since last year.

We seek opportunities to use the intrinsic value in the waste and to recycle. To reduce the environmental impact, Primark has replaced almost all of its plastic carrier bags with more easily recycled paper bags. 

In 2008, ABF signed up to the UK Government's commitment’s to three packaging targets in the UK:

• to design out packaging waste growth by 2008;
• to deliver absolute reductions in packaging waste by 2010; and
• to help reduce the amount of food the nation’s householders throw away by 155,000 tonnes by 2010, against a 2008 baseline.

In September 2010 the first and third of these UK national targets had been achieved with the total packaging remaining constant rather than showing absolute reduction. The group is pleased to have contributed to this achievement.

Projects to reduce packaging achieved the following:

• Silver Spoon Golden Syrup – moving from a glass jar weighing 236g to a recycled plastic container weighing 35g, a weight saving of 85%, and a carbon saving of 59%. When savings in secondary packaging and transport are included we estimate that this saves 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide for each million units sold.
• Patak’s – reducing the weight of glass jars from 225g to 198g has saved 500 tonnes of glass and £125,000 of costs per year. We expect further savings by increasing the number of finished goods units per pallet and reducing packaging taxes.

_{Patak's new glass jar}

Silver Spoon – over the last eight years we have reduced the weight of the paper used to package our 1kg bags of granulated sugar by 12%, and in 2010 we launched our lightest yet, reducing the packaging by another 6%. In March 2010 Silver Spoon started packaging its sweetener in a resaleable Eco Pouch rather than a glass jar, with a 98% reduction in packaging weight.

_{Silver Spoon’s new Eco Pouch packaging.}

In 2010 the government launched a commitment to reduce the carbon impact of packaging by 10%, to reduce household food and drink waste by 4% and to reduce traditional grocery product waste in the grocery supply chain by 5%. We will be contributing to these reductions.

Sugar in Spain is typically sold in paper bags. The paper itself has to be robust enough to form the pack and prevent tearing. This year, after detailed analysis and trials, Azucarera was able to reduce the amount of paper it uses in its bags by around 150 tonnes a year or 12.5%.

AB Enzymes is working to develop enzymes which can be used instead of chemicals. Enzymes are naturally occurring proteins which enable biological reactions to occur in temperatures and conditions that would not otherwise be possible. Moreover, as enzymes are produced with the help of micro-organisms such as bacteria or moulds, the production process (fermentation) is significantly less harmful to the environment than the production of chemicals. This means that enzymes can replace harsh chemicals and organic solvents, and reduce energy use and waste effluent.

This year AB Enzymes introduced a novel heat-stable enzyme for the animal feed industry which releases the organic phosphorus in the feed, making it available for animals such as pigs and poultry through their diet. Less inorganic phosphorus now needs to be added to the feed, and more importantly, less organic phosphorus is emitted into the environment by the animals. This new enzyme provides customers with improved processability, excellent performance and a smaller ecological footprint.

We have introduced the concept of integrating the enzyme into the manufacture of ‘second generation’ bioethanol from agricultural residues, which reduces energy and waste.