Recycling | Rapid Online

As a responsible business, Rapid is committed to reducing the impact we have on the environment, trading in a more sustainable way and limiting the amount of waste we produce. Sustainability is one of the most important considerations in industry right now and it will continue to be a key focus for Rapid as we and our customers demand greater environmental responsibility.

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

Replace

Our mission is to

Ensure our commitment to the protection of the environment, including prevention of pollution and other specific commitment(s) relevant to the context of the company
Satisfy applicable statutory and regulatory requirements of ISO Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental standards
Be sensitive to the environmental impact of the company’s activities, products and services

We are living up to this mission to make real, positive, and effective changes for our customers, ourselves and the environment. We are implementing new and innovative ways to reduce and recycle our waste, through new packaging processes, thereby reducing our company’s environmental impact.

Find out more

By doing so, we can help our customers to increase their own sustainability efforts, decrease their carbon footprint and make a difference to their bottom line by reducing expenses. That way everyone benefits and is ‘helping our planet make it’.

"Our purpose is to make sustainability a core part of our operational processes, and become a leaner, greener, and more efficient business and really help make a difference."

James Bates. Managing Director, Rapid

Background

Over the last two years, Rapid has been making major strides in its approach to being more environmentally friendly and in 2019 this culminated in being awarded the ISO 14001:2015 standard, setting requirements for our environmental management system. (View our certification here). We are very proud to be holders of this certification and continue to improve our environmental performance through more efficient use of resources and reduction in waste. In 2019 we also launched our electrical vehicle charger installation brand Replenishh, further pursuing our green agenda.

How we are achieving this:

Implementing new and improved environment friendly packaging systems
Minimising waste through elimination, substitution, recovery and/or recycling and ensure that waste disposal, on or off site, is carried out in an acceptable manner.
Regular communication of our environmental practices to our staff and customers and encouraging new initiatives and processes
Conducting regular environmental impact assessments to identify potential environmental risks
Recycling paper, card, metals, plastics, and batteries within the office and distribution centre

We changed our ways of working by:

Reducing waste of packaging for bought-in goods and goods distributed to our customers. Find out more…
Creating minimum environmental packaging standards for current and future suppliers
Offsetting the CO2 that our printers produce by enrolling in the EBM Green Print Programme which recycles our used ink/toner and consumables to reduce device waste. It also calculates the CO2 produced by our print operations. This includes the power used to run the printer and diesel used for site visits. Through EBM’s scheme we are investing in Quality Assurance Standard (QAS)-verified offset Tree Planting & Deforestation projects.

Packaging project

Our current project is looking at how we deal with packaging; we are receiving increasing requests from our customers asking for non-branded boxes so they can reuse them. We have taken these wishes on board and gone further, in changing our packing strategy.

Our boxes & packaging tape:

Non-branded plain boxes allows customers to reuse our boxes and us to reuse supplier's boxes.
Using collapsible boxes allows us to improve packing efficiency by reducing the box volume
82.4% reduction in tape requirements per annum
100% non-recyclable plastic eliminated

Updated void filler:

Reuse supplier void fill
Introduction of air cushioned HDPE packaging manufactured entirely from pre-consumer recycled plastics and 100% recyclable.
Introduction of lighter/space saving protective packaging that can be reused multiple times for its original purpose
Improved packing efficiency by reducing the amount of void fill requirements while maximising volume utilisation during transport.
Low weight of protective packaging resulting in fuel usage/savings during transport.

Results - What does this mean?

With the use of the new lighter material, we have achieved significant results including:

Void Fill

Void fill weight reduced by 88%

Postal Weight

Annual postal weight reduced by 40.6 tonnes per year

Delivery Vans

13 fully loaded 3-ton delivery vans eliminated per year

CO2

8.6 metric tonnes of CO2 eliminated per year

The new lighter and space saving packaging is a great environmental alternative to bubble wrap, paper and other protective void fill solutions. Allowing us to eliminate 100% of non-recyclable plastic whilst also protecting a wide range of products efficiently and effectively and reducing the chance of goods getting damaged in transit.

Other benefits include:

Paper Saved

46 tons of paper saved per year

Trees Saved

Over 1,100 trees saved per year

Land Saved

4.63 Acres of land saved per year

What is HDPE

Due to its properties, stiffness, strength, resistance to moisture, high density polyethylene material (HDPE) is a commonly recycled plastic and is the most environmentally stable of all plastics – giving off no harmful fumes into the environment. Manufacturing HDPE plastics requires only a fraction of the energy required to produce steel from iron ore, further contributing to its classification of being Eco-friendly.

Within the UK, best practices on the domestic and commercial recycling of films are continually being rolled out by local councils. For those who can't recycle plastic film at home/kerbside, most types of plastic films can be recycled at carrier bag collection points at the larger stores of most major supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, The Co-op and Waitrose.

There is also some useful information regarding the recycling of plastic films here… www.recyclenow.com

Additional Initiatives Rapid are involved with

The last few years have seen a number of hugely significant pieces of legislation for manufacturers, importers, distributors and end users of electrical and electronic equipment. Click the links below to find out what compliance to the WEEE, RoHS and REACH regulations means for Rapid.