Environmental Policy
Beads Australia Pty Ltd t/as Silicone Beads Australia
Environmental initiative policy
At Silicone Beads Australia, we are committed to doing what we can to minimise the negative impact our business has on the environment.
We have implemented environmentally conscious initiatives within the company that include but are not limited to;
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Product packaging - packaging is an inevitable requirement and it is sometimes necessary to pack items separately. We are determined to greatly diminish its use within our business. Excess packaging is completely unnecessary, and you don’t need beads delivered to you in a mountain of little plastic bags. Isn’t sorting a fresh delivery of bead goodness half the fun of receiving an order? Our goal is to halve our soft plastic packaging use by the end of 2019, and halve again by the end of the financial year 2020.
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Coffee pod recycling - we drink a LOT of coffee here and this produces excess waste. We have partnered with Terracycle and all of our used coffee pods are now correctly recycled instead of going to landfill.
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Waste paper recycling - all our non-sensitive documents are reused within the business as note paper before being recycled. Documents containing customer details (order picking slips, shipping manifests etc) are securely destroyed prior to being recycled. We only use 100% recycled paper.
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Soft plastics recycling - our beads come packaged in LDPE plastic bags that require specialist recycling. These are the largest source of waste within the company and we are proud to announce all of our soft plastic waste is now recycled.
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Cardboard recycling - all cardboard is responsibly recycled or reused within the company.
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All protective packaging (primarily bubble wrap) that comes into our business is reused when packing customer orders. Unfortunately we use a lot more than we receive, so please if there is bubble wrap used in packing your order, reuse or recycle it!
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Plastic and cardboard cord spools, cord offcuts, bead seconds and any other useful suitable products are donated to our local primary school for the children’s art and crafts.
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Reduced energy use - non essential lighting, equipment and heating/cooling is turned off to conserve energy, including power points of unused appliances. Our warehouse and upstairs office have newly replaced skylights, powering our workspaces with sunlight.
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Paper consumables - all toilet paper, tissues and paper towel is purchased from "Who Gives a Crap" and completely plastic free. Products are made from recycled paper and 50% of profits go towards building toilets in developing countries.
Future initiatives;
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We have discussed with Australia Post our desire for a more environmentally friendly option to their current plastic satchels. They have advised they are currently in the process of developing a product that will hopefully meet our needs. Whilst we are aware there are already alternatives out there, the options need to be economically viable so the implementation does not result in increased shipping prices being passed on to our customers.
