Reducing plastic waste is really important to us and we are working towards becoming a plastic-free company.
As a society, we’re becoming increasingly aware of the effects of single use plastics on our planet. We’re committed to lessening our impact on the environment, and a key part of this mission is reducing plastic waste.
Documentaries such as David Attenborough’s Blue Planet are a stark reminder of just how much plastic we are using and where it ends up; we were prompted to remove plastic straws from our bars and replace them with biodegradable alternatives. Charities are making a stand against plastic use and we feel that we should echo these sentiments in the way we work.
Ross and Ross has taken stock of everything we do to see how we can work greener and actively reduce our plastic waste. We’ve looked at the smallest details – replacing plastic pens with pencils and always recycling our printer cartridges – and gone as far as our suppliers, who now deliver our fresh produce in reusable crates to cut down on the use of plastic bags. Our plan for how to reduce plastic waste includes recycling, reusing and choosing more environmentally friendly products without compromising on the services that we provide.
We also take our environmental ethos on the road with us. We now have colour coded recycling bins to take with us on site to make it really easy to separate recycling at weddings and parties, rather than just dumping all of the waste for landfill. We have food waste bins, oil recycling, plastic/cardboard and glass recycling bins at HQ, and we make sure all our event waste is separated into this too.
As part of our commitment to the environment, Ross and Ross donate a tree to the Woodland Trust for every wedding that we do. We used to dedicate a tree for each client, now we buy a whole plot of woodland every six months and dedicate it to the brides and grooms we’ve had the pleasure of working with in that time.
One thing that we do struggle with is that the focus on reducing plastic packaging hasn’t necessarily made its way to the catering industry yet. There is a lot of information about reducing plastic waste for the end user but not as much about being more environmentally friendly behind the scenes. We’re doing our best to reduce our waste by reusing anything we can and are always on the lookout for new green products. In particular, we really want to be able to use biodegradable cling film, but the product we’re after just doesn’t exist at the moment – entrepreneurs, please get in touch! We’re certainly not plastic-free just yet, but we’re getting there.