Zero Waste Challenge… the results are IN!

After a few recalculations and receiving my zero waste Christmas gift from South Pole – thank you! – I am now ready to share the results of the November Zero waste challenge with you! Shout out to our champs!
1. Medellin: 126 grammes / person
2. Jakarta: 166 grammes / person
3. Bangkok:  223 grammes / person
4. Sydney: 370 grammes / person
5. New Delhi: 384 grammes / person

But don’t get me wrong, the champions here are all the offices that participated – almost half of South Pole – and I am sure we will be even more in the next edition of the challenge.

So what does this figure really mean? Separated into 5 categories: non-recyclable, recyclable plastics, metals, paper and glass.  Since some materials are easier to recycle, we have affected some weightings to the different materials ranging from 1 for non-recyclable to 0.05 for glass. This weighting helped the Sydney office to go from rank 8 up to rank 4 as they’re accustomed to drinking glass-bottled beer on their terrace! The weighted total has then been divided by the average number of employees during the period. And for the ones who are hungry for more detail here you are.

Why does this challenge matter? Plastics, food, electronic devices… Waste is already one of the key fights of this century. As citizens and penguins, our responsibility is to reduce, recycle, repurpose and inspire people around us to do the same. And for that, we need to better understand our local system: zero waste shops, recycling ecosystem (varies widely depending on the regulation and market). And if you were to need some extra motivation, remember that it adds some sustainability skills to your curriculum as well as preventing the death of baby animals.

What were the direct impacts of the challenge? Well besides hopefully inspiring some of you to pause and think about your daily waste, there is more good news from South Poles’ offices!

– In Jakarta: Habits changed with people using their own tupperware for takeaways or bringing things in from home.

– At Zurich HQ: Plastic separation for recycling will be set up.  The building management has even been convinced to support this task which helps decrease plastic transport emissions to the old town.

– In Mexico: Better late than never – we plan to receive recycling training from Ecolana, a local start-up, to make sure we are recycling the best we can!

– In London: We are cracking the whip and implementing harsh fines for those who do not use reusable coffee cups (shudder the thought!!)

What’s next? In the past, our waste data used to be estimated. While I am conscious that there might be a margin of error in the current data (penguins not participating, imprecise scale, typing errors, calculation errors, etc.) it is still a considerably better estimate than asking office managers to guesstimate for the year. The waste data, as well as the qualitative data collected from team leaders, will be used to better implement our internal Sustainability Action Plan for 2019.

Huge thanks to Laura Guccione, Aymeric Reymond, Sarah Boissinot, Arturo Mora and everyone else who contributed to organising this challenge!