UK-based home and general merchandise retailer, Home Retail Group has set themselves a target of 25% reduction in the waste going to landfill in the coming twelve months. During the last five years, the Group has reduced the of waste sent to landfill from 87,000 to 13,000 tonnes, witnessing a remarkable 80% decrease.
Home Retail Group has already committed to the WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) Home Improvement Sector Agreement. Launched in September 2009, signatories to the Agreement committed signatories to reduce packaging and waste to landfill.
Homebase and Argos have committed to reduce packaging by 15% and waste to landfill by 50% by the end of 2012 from the 2007 base levels and have pledged to reduce packaging on all own label and direct import products. The overall performance will be reported to WRAP on an annual basis.
Launched earlier this year, the sofa bag alone is set to save in the region of 1,800 tonnes in the first year. It is a replacement for traditional sofa packaging and is introduced at the point of manufacture before items are containerised for delivery to the UK.
The reusable packaging does not incur any additional delivery cost to the customer.
Customers are taking advantage of the opportunity to return bulky packaging, with 55% of Argos and Homebase customers who take delivery of large appliances returning their packaging for recycling, and also using the business’s recycling service for large old kitchen appliances. Of the waste generated by the Group 78% is recycled.