What we are doing

As a responsible business, Rapid is committed to recycling and reducing our carbon footprint.

With climate change and the erosion of natural resources, recycling has become one of the key issues facing businesses today. From both an ethical and economic point of view - recycling does not incur landfill tax - it makes sense to operate our business in a manner that sustains the environment. Some would argue it is irresponsible not to recycle wherever possible. If a business does not recycle it is creating a bad impression to both the customer and employees, which could have a drastic impact on productivity, motivation and trade.

Recycling

Rapid has now been recycling for many years. As our business continues to grow, we are holding our emissions steady, but that is not enough - our target is to reach zero. This will involve making changes to many of our business practices, such as reducing the number of small value order deliveries we make.

We believe we are making a difference in controlling the amount of waste we produce and send away, and try to keep this down to a minimum. Internally, we only print emails when absolutely necessary on pre-used copies of internal documents, and recycle as many office bi-products as we can. We provide information and appropriate training for all staff on recycling.

Each office area has a recycle sack for all clean used paper and mailers. We post emails or information on announcement boards to conserve paper, use scrap paper for notes and re-use large envelopes, boxes and packaging materials.

In the warehouse, the paper that we use in our packaging processes is produced from 100% recycled, biodegradable neutral ph paper.

All suitable boxes are re-used in packaging, while waste cardboard and paper are stored separate from general waste and taken to local recycling depots. Plastic packaging is used where necessary but this is kept to a minimum. As in every company and household, there will always be a certain amount of material that has to be classed as general waste, but here at Rapid, we use authorised waste management companies to ensure that general waste is disposed of efficiently.

Rapid provides an annual report of the company's waste packaging data to the Environment Agency. We are also a member of Wastepack, a government-approved body which ensures the company complies with all waste packaging regulations.