Reducing waste

Lion Nathan

We continue to participate in, and provide significant funding for, the Packaging Stewardship Forum’s (PSF) programs to improve resource recovery, litter education and prevention. Achievements for the year can be found in the Australian Food and Grocery Council’s PSF annual report. However here are some examples:

Glass in alternative markets – With stockpiles of broken glass around Australia unable to be used for glass bottle making, and glass recycling rates stagnant, the PSF has made good progress in leading the development and demonstration of alternative markets for recycled glass. Partnerships with key stakeholders has seen the successful demonstration of recycled crushed glass in construction and road making applications in Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales, and considerable interest has been generated in other states.

Away from Home Recycling – To ensure greater recovery of beverage containers for recycling in the away-from-home sector, the PSF has focused on venues with high levels of consumption. During the year, PSF partnerships with shopping centre managers and owners Westfield, Lend Lease and Mirvac, Australia’s major airports, higher education institutions, key sporting stadia, convention and exhibition centres and major entertainment venues, has seen the installation of more than 800 new recycling bins across Australia.

Supporting communities to reduce litter and increase recycling – During the year the PSF also provided support to 91 councils and communities across Australia through the provision of more than 31,000 ‘Do the Right Thing’ roadside signs, posters and ‘Do the Right Thing, Use the Right Bin’ waste and recycling bin stickers. The program has been in place for the past three years and now more than 400 councils, businesses and communities are promoting this campaign.

Code for packaging – There has been ongoing support by the PSF and its member companies for the implementation of the Environmental Code of Practice for Packaging. Lion Nathan continues to use the code’s checklist in the development of strategies and specific actions.

Other highlights for the year included:

• The continued effectiveness of our online Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool (PIQET©), which allows us to rapidly assess packaging scenarios to help us make decisions on the environmental impacts of our packaging. Packaging materials in FY10 were, on average, 96.6% commercially recyclable and contained approximately 81,000 tonnes of recycled content materials.
• Light weighting initiatives undertaken resulted in an annual reduction of 586 tonnes of packaging materials, mainly glass and some cardboard. 
• The launch of Project Evergreen, a three-year strategic initiative to further reduce our packaging will involve our sustainability, marketing, operations and supply chain teams. Targets have been set and will be achieved through packaging innovation, stakeholder engagement and brewery and supply chain involvement.
• Recycling and landfill reduction initiatives continue at our breweries.

Along with these highlights, Lion Nathan faced a number of challenges. One such challenge is the trend, seen globally and nationally, away from mainstream to premium type brands. The latter use more packaging per litre of product, mainly due to bottle capacity and glass weight ratio compared to mainstream brands. There is also a trend away from keg beer towards take-home packs. These two factors led to a 2% increase in our packaging-to-product ratio from 0.343 to 0.350.

Some time ago we initiated a Glass Users Group as a sub committee of the PSF, to focus on the specific issues around used glass containers. The PSF has funded the freight of used glass containers from Western Australia for recycling, as well as many research and development projects for alternate uses for used glass cullet. It has also focused on recycling packaging from retail centres such as Westfield and has successfully redirected waste that previously went to landfill to be recycled. We continue to consult and provide evidence to state and federal governments on the voluntary activities of the packaging industry and are signatories to the Australian Packaging Covenant.

The NZ Packaging Accord has now ended and the Waste Minimisation Act is in place. We have taken an industry leadership position in the Packaging Council of New Zealand (President of PacNZ) and the Glass Packaging Forum (Chairman of GPF). This year the GPF’s voluntary product stewardship scheme was accredited by the Minister for the Environment, becoming the second organisation in the country to receive accreditation under the new Act. The GPF has also been successful in receiving a substantial grant from the Minister to lead the "Love New Zealand" public place-recycling project over the next two years. Our Environment Director has been invited by the Minister to sit on his waste advisory board for the next three years. PacNZ has designed, and is rolling out to its membership, its own product stewardship scheme, and will seek accreditation for it next year.

Byproducts

Again in FY10, a substantial amount of spent yeasts and grain from our beer manufacturing process were recovered and recycled, and used in products such as stock feed and food additives:

National Foods

Following National Foods’ merger with Dairy Farmers in 2008, a number of additional products were introduced, resulting in an increase in the volume of packaging produced and put to market. We are working with various packaging suppliers and recyclers to optimise our packaging design and materials, seek ways to reduce grams of packaging used per litre of product and ensure our packaging can be recycled within current kerbside systems. At present the recyclability rate of National Foods packaging is 89%.

Key areas of focus in FY10 included expanding the number of sites that recycle and the range of materials collected for recycling. Work continued on the down gauging of yoghurt and dairy containers, resulting in a substantial reduction in the use of plastic. We also eliminated the use of foil lined liquid paperboard containers across the juice division.

Many of our National Foods’ sites have been successful in reducing waste to landfill. Some examples:

• The Capital Chilled Foods Australia milk plant in Canberra now boasts figures of 99% of total waste diverted to recycling.
• In Tasmania, the Lenah Valley site has looked for innovative ways to recycle in the face of limited recycling options. By linking up with a local primary school, the plant is able to reuse previously wasted plastic bottle tops, plastic bags, cardboard and paper – materials that previously the school had to buy – demonstrating how effectively community partnerships can contribute to waste minimisation.
• In Victoria, the Chelsea site achieved a massive 300 tonnes per year reduction in waste to landfill in 2010 compared to previous years.

Lion Nathan Wines

The reduction of packaging mass is ongoing:

• St Hallett winery in the Barossa, known for its range of Shiraz and quirky blends, has launched a lighter weight bottle for two of its popular wines, Poachers Blend and Gamekeepers Reserve. The new bottle weighs 360 grams and is 135 grams or 27.2% lighter. Whereas one pallet of Gamekeepers in the old bottle (495g x 1020 bottles) weighed 0.51 tonne, pallets holding the new bottles weigh 0.37 tonne. This equates to a reduction of 0.14 tonnes or a saving of 206 kg of C0₂e per pallet.
• Mitchelton already treat and reuse their (shandied) liquid waste on the vineyards and Stonier is investigating a similar approach on a much smaller scale.
• Knappstein has disposed of their woodlot and will be sending their liquid waste to the council treatment system, the output from which is reused in the district on vines and golf courses.