Zero Waste Week 2019

For a long time (too long in our opinion), we’ve been a ‘throw-away society’. Particularly in the twenty-first century we’ve become accustomed to buying items encased in packaging: sandwiches, coffee to go, bottled water. We buy cheap clothing and because it’s inexpensive, we’re not too worried when it wears out and we have to replace it. We’re constantly upgrading our technology: phones, TVs, electronic devices. We throw out and replace rather than repair.

But what happens to all this stuff we discard? Just because it’s vanished from our life doesn’t mean it miraculously vanishes from the planet. If we’re lucky it ends up in an incinerator where it can be used to generate power, but mostly it ends up in landfill, blowing about the hedgerows, floating round the oceans or washed up on beaches. Of the plastic produced since the 1950s, more than 79 per cent of it has ended up in landfill or littering the environment.

Fortunately, thanks to prominent environmentalists like Sir David Attenborough, we have woken up to our need to reduce waste, particularly plastic waste, and organisations are working hard to find solutions to the huge problems the planet faces.

Zero Waste Week, which starts on the first Monday in September (2 September 2019) was launched in 2008 and is conducted mainly on line through its website, e-newsletters and social media. The campaign’s purpose is to raise awareness about the environmental impact of waste and encourage individuals, businesses and organisations to participate in reducing the amount of waste they send to landfill.

The very nature of the foodservice industry means we create more waste than many other businesses. The food we buy comes in packages; we wrap food to keep it fresh in storage; we wrap food to keep it from being contaminated at point of sale. And because we handle more food, it follows that we create more food waste too.

We mentioned that organisations are finding solutions to the waste problem: well at Total Foodservice we’ve been working hard to find environmentally responsible products too. In fact we’ve been working on this for over 17 years – as being environmentally friendly and sustainable at our 2 depots has always been part of our corporate policy.

Our range of quality, sustainable and cost-effective environmentally responsible cleaning and disposable products now includes more than 4,000 items and will continue to grow as new products become available.

We think Zero Waste Week is an ideal time to consider what you can do to help the environment, so why not sign up and join the friendly online community to share practical experiences and suggestions about waste avoidance and use social media to keep the discussion and learning process going? There’s lots going on – and the work doesn’t just stop after the first week of September!