Australian Legal Sector Alliance

About Join Contact Us

Working collaboratively to promote sustainable practice across the legal sector

Back to list

GreenThemes: Waste

06 December 2013 4:16 PM | Anonymous member

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Waste audits are NOT a waste of time

Case-Study: In 2007 Clayton Utz Melbourne carried out a waste audit with the help of Green Collect. The audit involved a 24 hour sample of the office waste and showed the following;

60% of the waste was paper related;
25% could have been recycled and;
only 15% was really landfill waste.

Overall the amount of waste going to landfill per floor each night was 480 litres.

As a result of the audit, a number of 120 litre co-mingled recycling bins were introduced throughout the tenancy and the standard waste bin under the desk was replaced with a 3 in 1 bin solution. The 3 in 1 bin encouraged easy co-mingled and paper recycling whilst reducing landfill. Another waste audit was carried out in 2008 after the changes were implemented and it showed;

0% of paper was going to landfill;
10% of waste was still recyclable;
10% was organic (a commercial kitchen was introduced in late 2007) and;
80% was considered landfill;

Overall the amount of waste going to land fill per floor each night had reduced to 48 litres (or 90% less than the amount going to landfill per floor in 2007).

Spot waste audits are still carried out and pleasingly the good results have continued well after the changes were introduced.

Food

Reduce
Some ideas being used in law firms to the environmental impact of food

Reduce catering orders and portion sizes by 30%
Encourage use of 'Tentative' meeting responses and then confirm attendance
Sending meeting reminders prompts attendance updates
Meat-free Mondays even once a month (the Norwegian Army does it every week!). Livestock produce nearly 15% of all greenhouse gases

Reuse
According to Ronni Kahn, CEO of OzHarvest, 1 million Australian children go to school without breakfast or to bed without dinner.

At the same time, Australians waste $8billion worth of food each year, or 20% of all food purchased.

OzHarvest can collect your firm's surplus catering (even 10 sandwiches!) and distribute them to hungry people. They have even addressed the liability issues with donated food.

Recycle

24% of Aussies use a wormfarm or compost bin instead, 10% feed food waste to chooks (or other livestock) and 13% use a council food waste scheme.

Bokashi bins are an easy and non-smelly way to quick compost your food scraps if you don't have other options.

Food and other organic waste rots in landfill produces methane which is 25X worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Technology
It's estimated that each person will generate 400kg of electronic waste in their lifetime and currently most ends up in landfill. This wastes non-renewable resources such as gold, steel, copper, zinc aluminium as well as water, oil and energy.

The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme promoted the recycling of 40,000 tonnes of e-waste in 2013 and aims to recycle 80% of all ewaste by 2022. TechCollect and Planet Ark provide details on where and how you can recycle your ewaste.

Recycling Revolution

Do you want some facts & figures to support your recycling programs? More guidance on how to recycle specific items?

Have a look at Planet Ark's Recycling Revolution website and report for info like:

only 4% of batteries are recycled in Australia - ALDI & Battery World outlets provide facilities
introduce or promote recycling at your workplace with help from the business recycling toolkit
Plastic bags usually can't go in recycling as they can break the sorting machines, but Coles Supermarkets collect them for recycling.

	This Issue
+	Waste Audits
+	Food
+	Technology
+	Recycling Revolution
+	Get ready: Energy

See the full list of ideas and resources on the AusLSA GreenThemes website

AusLSA Events 2014

Sydney Champions Network
Wed 6 Feb

Melbourne Champions Network

Wednesday 12 Feb

Webinar: Offsetting Travel
Thurs 3 April

Webinar: Moving to the Cloud at Lavan Legal
Thurs 6 March

Training: Intro to Procurement and Sustainability
Webinar series
Feb - March 2013 (TBC)

Brisbane Champions Network
Feb 2013 (TBC)

Perth Champions Network
Feb 2013 (TBC)

Adelaide Champions Network
March 2013 (TBC)

The Challenge of Changing Behaviour

It is far easier to do again what we have done before, than it is to do something better.

So, make the new habit the easier option and explain why it is worth the effort.


	*Green Themes 2014* *Q1: Energy*	*Burning the midnight oil*
EARTH HOUR 29 March 2014 Join the global collective of Earth Hours - 152 countries, 7000 towns/cities - and run a switch off campaign at your office. Ask security/cleaners to make sure office lights are off for Earth Hour Encourage staff to participate at home. Hold a competition for a candlelit dinner Use Earth Hour as a platform for ongoing change and switch off every night. The Earth Hour website also some fantastic videos to help you inspire your staff.	MONITOR MONITORS PC Monitors use up to 80% of the energy of the entire machine making them an easy target for energy savings. Power saver settings on computers can save up to 50% of PC energy usage. Set the monitor to turn off after 3min of inactivity. Turning on and off the monitor is quick and responsive, so there should be fewer complaints from staff when asked to do so. Laptops are generally more energy efficient than desktops and are more mobile. Download some Switch-off stickers and posters from the Carbon Trust.	OFF PEAK SAVINGS Office buildings consume approx 55% of their energy footprint during vacant hours (which is approx 72% of the time). GreenSense have produced an Out of Hours Guide that provides facts, figures and advice on how to reduce out of hours energy. A Night Audit as suggested by the CitySwitch program involves an office walk around after or before staff are at work. Note the PCs left running, perhaps including a reward or an anti-reward. Conduct an audit before and after your Switch-off Campaign.

You are receiving this message because you opted in at {Organization_URL}

Add comment