Page 14 Packaging, waste and recycling

According to the Environment Agency, the UK produces 330 million tonnes of waste a year and three-quarters of our unrecycled waste goes to landfill. This has a huge impact on the environment, from unsightly litter to sprawling landfill sites. It is also a financial burden; for instance, the 11,600 tonnes of waste John Lewis generates costs us about £990,000 a year to dispose of. With landfill space running out and the fact that sites produce methane, a greenhouse gas with 20 times more impact on climate change than CO2, we need to act now.

Packaging, waste and recycling

Ambition
To divert our waste away from landfill by reducing, reusing, recycling or recovering energy from all our commercial waste and packaging.


Targets
>Recycle 50% of all John Lewis waste by year-end 2010
>Help to reduce the overall environmental impact of carrier bags by 25% by year-end 2008


Packaging
Packaging is essential for the integrity, safety and usability of our products, and protects them in transit, but overpackaging has environmental and financial costs. So even though John Lewis generates less than 14% of the Partnership's 117,000 tonnes of packaging a year, we remain committed to minimising the amount we use.
In particular:

>all new paper and card packaging uses either recycled or Forest Stewardship Council-certified material
>we will reduce our use of plastic packaging, and replace PVC packaging with material with recycling potential
>we aim to introduce 50 new 'lightweight' packaging lines a year.


More information and detailed data can be found on www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk
See the Waitrose CSR report for more information on our sister company