Environmental Flyer 2019

The Otter House Group is one of the largest UK publishers and retailers of greetings cards, calendars, giftware and stationery. We realise that we need to have the right product, right price and right service for all of our customers, but we rarely promote all the other things we either have to do as part of legislation, or where we go beyond legislation because we care, as individuals and as a company, about ethical trading and the environment. Single-use plastic is becoming a bit of a buzz phrase. It’s easy to say but far harder to work out what to do. We are working on four areas: We currently use polypropylene (PP) or polyethylene (PE) for our polybags and shrink wrap. Both are recyclable, but while some councils (like our local council in Exeter) accept shrink wrap in household recycle bins, others don’t. The situation is changing, and more and more councils are accepting a wider range of plastics to recycle, which is great news. As part of the drive to reduce plastic, we have been steadily reducing packaging across our product ranges. Within our gift product ranges we can boast about the changes we’re making, from reducing plastic packaging on existing stationery ranges to new, reduced-plastic ceramic packaging being launched in Autumn 2019. We are also working on calendar products that have zero packaging - we are aiming to launch these calendars, which will be 2020-dated, in January 2019 at the NEC Spring Fair. One of our primary areas of focus is our research into the materials used to make packaging. Our research into biodegradable plastics shows that while these plastics sound positive, and are often specified by some of our clients, it is not clear in the scientific community if these products are any better when it comes to keeping plastic molecules out of the oceans. An additive applied to the plastic helps to break it down when exposed to oxygen. Once broken down, it no longer becomes litter, but the micro plastics it breaks into may still get into the oceans. If put into landfill, it may not have enough oxygen to breakdown and therefore doesn’t become bio-degradable. If bio-degradable plastics get into the oceans, the temperature is too low for them to bio-degrade. One further problem is that bio-degradable plastics are not recyclable and are hard for our local councils to segregate. They would rather have plastics that are recyclable such as polypropylene. For those interested in further reading, the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) report on Bio-degradable Plastics & Marine Litter is the most objective report out there. As you can see, the jury is still out on how best to tackle the issue of plastics and waste in general. We are currently testing some PLA compostable bags. If correctly disposed of, they do not breakdown into micro plastics; however, there appears to be no infrastructure to deal with the collection of this type of material. You cannot put it in your home compostable wheelie bins or your bin for recyclables. But if it ends up in landfill (highly probable) it breaks down better than any other material, if the conditions are right. Use recyclable packaging so local councils can collect and sell for recycling Remove single-use plastics in the supply chain Reduce packaging and in some cases remove all packaging Test new materials as they become available “As an ethical company we will continue to improve our knowledge of the materials we use so we can ensure we make the right decisions when manufacturing and offer the right solutions for our customers”. PRODUCT MATERIAL TOTAL COMMENTS TYPE PRODUCT KG Calendars polyolyfin 11,920 Recyclable material Checking local councils all accept PP wrap now Diaries unwrapped - We no longer shrink wrap diaries Greetings Cards PP 3,035 All recyclable PP polybags. Naked cards being trialled Boxed Cards card 47,721 Recyclable material Stationery cardboad 4,920 Recyclable material Ceramic card 16,574 Recyclable material Ceramic acetate 1,507 Recyclable material. Acetate removal in development Jigsaws PP 500 Recyclable material Giftwrap PP 591 Recyclable material Giftwrap card 985 Recyclable material Glitter glitter 1.50 Looking at alternative sources Cardboard stiffer cardboard 59,598 All recyclable board or made from recycled board Product packaging impact assessment Our specific commitments to help reduce global packaging material flows: Continue to work with key partners in our supply chain and our client base to develop alternative materials and packaging solutions operate a program of continual improvement, focusing on the removal from our supply chain of 2022 By or earlier or earlier we aim to make all our plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable 2025 By Continue to use for shrink wrap products and polybags as the best currently available material, until better alternatives become viable recyclable materials single-use plastic