SUSTAINABILITY
Officeworks Hoxton
Park takes recycling
to the next level
At the end of August, the Officeworks
Hoxton Park team attended a recycling
session at Cleanaway along with three
other teams.
Unknown to Hoxton Park and the other teams
attending, their general waste bins had been
delivered and turned upside down enabling
them to conduct a waste audit. But first, they
got some insight into Officeworks’ recycling
goal of 85% for FY19, and the path towards
zero waste to landfill by 2020. With Hoxton Park
closing July at 81% after three months hard
work, the team were satisfied with their result
and confident they were on track to reach the
85% target this year.
Next, it was time to don some fetching
PPE suits and take a closer look at their
achievements by conducting a bin audit,
sorting every bag and every piece of rubbish
placed in their general waste bin over the
past two weeks. They sorted their waste into
different streams to better understand what
else could be recycled, and how to address
the reasons why recyclables enter the general
waste stream.
Despite their achievements of the past three
months, the Hoxton Park team was surprised to
find 50% of their bin’s content was recyclable.
“We could’ve filled a Paper Wheelie bin of
all the paper in our general waste bin,” said
Bobbie Nicholls, Store Business Manager at
Officeworks Hoxton Park. “We also found lots of
co-mingling, trimmings from Print & Copy, half-
empty toilet rolls, Print & Copy consumables
and stock, receipts and disposable cups from
the coffee station.”
At the start of the day, there were four full
bins of waste that were destined for landfill,
but after sorting it, the four teams were able
to reduce it to just one bin in total. With each
of the participating stores already recycling
more than 80%, it showed that there are lots of
opportunities to improve our recycling.
The Hoxton Park team identified a series of
underlying causes to address such as the
team members not being across recycling
expectations, not offering enough recycling
bins to team members and customers
throughout the store, POS team not asking
customers if they want a receipt before
printing, cleaners emptying all bins into
general waste and being told to replace toilet
rolls too soon and more.
To tackle these issues, Hoxton Park as
implemented a range of initiatives to make
it easier for both the store team, cleaners
and customers to make a positive difference.
These include improving recycling bin access
and options, improved visibility and education
of the team and cleaners. They also plan
to request more Paper Wheelie bins to help
manage paper waste effectively.
“There is so much more we can do to not
only meet the target, but to exceed it.” said
Bobbie. “As leaders, we can influence the
results within our own four walls by ensuring we
look at everything that goes into the bin. It’s
100% ownership.”
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On 29 August 2018
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