Australia Post's packaging sustainability agenda includes a focus on waste reduction and recycled packaging designs. Its efforts saw it win two 2016 Australian Packaging Covenant Awards, topping the Shipping & Transport category and winning the Outstanding Achievement in Product Stewardship award.
To support its focus on sustainability, Australia Post introduced a new enterprise-wide CSR strategy earlier this year. Part of this involves a focus on enabling the circular economy. However, it has already been breaking boundaries through several environmental initiatives announced over the past year.
The three Rs
Following a strategic benchmarking and waste management planning process, the volume of waste sent to landfill was reduced by 17 per cent in 2015 alone – in other words, 1700 tonnes.
Building on that achievement, Australia Post has set a target of recycling, reusing and responsibly diverting 100,000 tonnes of material by 2020.
Design differences
Australia Post now actively searches for sustainable options when designing and procuring packaging, which has resulted in some positive design changes for the company.
For example, its new international mailbags are made with recycled polypropylene and are also recyclable.
Development of a new recycled content and recyclable letter tray design is also underway.
This project will see more than 800,000 trays produced in 2017, resulting in significantly less landfill.
Product stewardship
Australia Post is part of a range of product stewardship projects and programs such as Cartridges 4 Planet Ark, MobileMuster, Tyre Stewardship Australia, and various TerraCycle programs.
As an example, Australia Post has helped process more than 5.2 million printer cartridges via Cartridges 4 Planet Ark.
It has also enabled customers to return more than 245,000 MobileMuster satchels, resulting in more than 62.6 tonnes of mobile phone handsets, batteries and chargers diverted from landfill.
“Our accreditation under Tyre Stewardship Australia, is another example of the responsibility we are taking for items at the end of their useful life,” head of environmental sustainability Andrew Sellick said.
It also participated in cross-industry collaborations such as the coffee cup recycling group and the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative, which are aiming to see many other products and materials reused or recycled.
Customers across Australia Post can also post their used plastic mailing satchels for free to Australia Post partner and global recycler TerraCycle to be melted down and used to build industrial items.
