Broadford & Strath Community Company speaks to businesses about reducing cardboard waste.

Broadford & Strath Community Company speaks to businesses about reducing cardboard waste.

Broadford & Strath Community Company is one of the eight implementing partners of the Highland Community Waste Partnership. One of their main focuses will be on supporting businesses to reuse and reduce cardboard waste through reuse and recycling, including linking into brown waste for community composting.

Fiona Gallie, Broadford & Strath's Community Waste Officer has been speaking to Melissa Macdougall from Scottish Removal Services, based in Broadford, about her business’s eco-friendly practices when it comes to packaging, especially cardboard reuse, and how householders can reuse their cardboard at home.

Recycling can be a solution, but the process of recycling cardboard requires vast amounts of energy and water and produces large volumes of CO2 emissions. Before we get to that point, it is always best if we can reuse this cardboard.

The company will use cardboard boxes 2-3 times as a box, and then a further 10-15 times as a protective cardboard sleeve before they recycle it.

Melissa explained how their packaging works for clients: “A home pack is delivered to the client. We supply, where possible, bio-degradable bubble wrap for bigger items and packing paper (some of this is newspaper) and we advise of handy ways to pack that are sustainable.”

“We also use bio-degradable mattress covers that can be reused and of course cloth transit blankets, themselves, made by suppliers from recycled cloth. Once people have moved, they send back the packing materials to be reused. This avoids so much cardboard going to recycling.”

Fiona and Melissa have come up with the following creative ways for householders to reuse cardboard at home:

• Keep card boxes for storage. If you have children, then you could turn it into a fun activity where you decorate the box and turn it in to a toy box.
• If you home compost, then shredded/teared cardboard can be used as brown waste. Just be careful with coloured cardboard/dyes as you want to avoid using that in your compost.
• Gardening – the cardboard can be used as mulch to get rid of weeds as it will stop sunlight getting in. ‘Charles Dowding’s No Dig Gardening’ is the expert on this.
• If you are sending parcels out to family and friends, you can reuse the cardboard boxes for this.
• Turn a box into a dog bed with an old pillow.
• Do not rip the tape off because as soon as you do this it is harder to reuse the cardboard as it can also rip the cardboard itself,
• You also want to keep your cardboard in a dry place to prevent it becoming mouldy.
• Flat pack the boxes and save lots of space.

Visit the Highland Community Waste Partnership website to see how the eight partners are working to reduce waste in our Highland communities, by changing the way that we all consume, that is, buy, use and dispose of things.