Recently, we posted about Spectraprint’s sustainability practices on our Instagram & Facebook pages (if you’re not following us, go and have a look!). We wanted to dive further into the topic of sustainability and the importance of this in ensuring a better tomorrow.
When this time of the year comes around, often you find that people are exhausted from the year that has passed and everyone looks forward to the summer holidays ahead. For businesses, the same is true but we also need to plan for the following year. So while November is both a time for planning and reflection, we’ve compiled a list of our top tips for the practice of being sustainable in 2024.
1. Reduce, reuse, recycle
The top tip is obviously to reduce, reuse and recycle. It’s been a common saying for years, with most agreeing it dates back to the 1970’s when the first Earth Day was held. It is part of the waste management system for waste hierarchy that was created to protect the environment through the management of resource and energy consumption.
Reduce
The first step is always to reduce your consumption as a preventative measure from having to fulfil the consecutive steps. It isn’t always easy to change your lifestyle when we are constantly prompted to consume, but think about the financial benefits of only purchasing what is really necessary.
Reuse
Where possible, try and reuse things that you have purchased. Classic examples of this is purchasing clothing that can be worn over several seasons, reusable water bottles, beverage cups and shopping bags.
There are some really amazing local businesses that allow you to bring in your own containers to refill common household products and produce such as cleaning agents, flours and nuts, to mention a few. These businesses provide brown paper bags or you can bring your own containers (or buy from them), you take what you need, measure it out, pay and leave! Check out The Green Tap located in Sunningdale (near Blouberg & Table View areas) and Gram Plastic Free Grocer located in Somerset West.
Recycle
The last word of the saying is to recycle. If you cannot reduce or reuse, the last possible thing is to recycle. Perhaps your financial constraints limits you from making certain purchasing decisions or you can only find what you need in a plastic container – in this case, recycling is important. The City of Cape Town provides recycling bins to residents for all your waste that can be recycled. In some areas, the recycled material is collected but in other areas you have to take your recycled material to your local dump site. Items that can be recycled will have the internationally recognised symbol for recycling.
How Spectraprint uses this tip in every day business:
Every job that comes into the business has paper requirements depending on the size of the print and the size of the paper available. All paper that has been cut and not used in the printing process is called offcuts. Sometimes the print will take up most of the sheet and other times, there is a good area of paper that has not been printed. The offcuts that cannot be used will be included in our recycling and the offcuts that are larger will be put aside to be used on another job. In this way, Spectraprint is able to reduce consumption and reuse.
We have also partnered with a local waste management company that collects our paper waste to recycle it. They come to use twice a week to collect our bags (which is reused every week) with all of our paper waste that has been sorted according to the level of ink contamination on the paper. For our chemicals and inks, we keep those containers in storage for the year and at the end of the year we will find a local company who is able to clean and repurpose the containers.
2. Conserving Energy & Water
All South Africans are able to say that they conserve energy because with loadshedding, it’s something that happens by itself! However, it is still important to unplug appliances and any electronic devices when they are not in use. Some common ways of conserving energy is also turning off lights and switching to energy efficient light bulbs and appliances.
A few years ago in Cape Town, we also went through a water crisis where our dam levels were extremely low. During this time, it became necessary to reduce our water consumption by reusing bath and shower water for flushing toilets, keeping taps closed while washing dishes or brushing our teeth, as well as limiting the time spent in showers. Water is a finite resource that also has to be used sparingly.
How Spectraprint uses this tip in every day business:
We are acutely aware of our electricity consumption as we have a prepaid meter in our business. We are able to monitor our usage and reduce it where necessary. We also ensure that all switches are off when not in use and we do not consume excess amounts of water during our printing processes.
3. Sustainable Transportation
If possible, use public transport or carpool with other individuals. This will save you some fuel as well as help with environmental pollution. The next time you think about purchasing a vehicle, opt for those that are fuel efficient and possibly even electric. For businesses, planning out your delivery routes prior to being on the road can also help save mileage by using the most effective routes and having one trip instead of multiple.
How Spectraprint uses this tip in every day business:
Spectraprint often has staff transportation on days when there may be overtime work or disruptions in the city. As most of our employees live in similar areas, we have a meet up point where we collect everyone.
4. Sustainable Living
To be sustainable requires a mindset adjustment that will lead to a change in lifestyle. We cannot be sustainable if we are not aware of how our choices impact the environment, and to have an awareness of this means that we need to adjust our minds to think along the lines of sustainability. Small changes like keeping reusable shopping bags in your car so that it is always handy when you go to the shop or leaving little notes and stickers around the house to remind yourself to unplug appliances and switch off lights, can all help in creating an awareness which eventually leads to good habits being formed.
How Spectraprint uses this tip in every day business:
We have cut down excess consumption for all of the products we use within the factory by using items more conservatively and with more awareness of waste.
5. Support Local Brands & Businesses
The most well-known economic law is supply and demand. Graphically it is represented on a chart that has price on the y-axis and quantity on the x-axis. The higher the price, the less the demand and greater the supply, and the lower the price, the less the supply and greater the demand. In theory, the point where these two lines meet is called the equilibrium point where price would be at the perfect level.
However, in reality this is not the case. Due to the increasing demand and limited supply, prices will always go up – and large corporations have profited on this for years as they have found cheaper alternatives (which put increased pressure on our finite resources as well as increasing environmental pollution) to supply the public’s increasing demand. These large corporations have been able to become multinational and while that is great business success, it is at the cost of our planet.
This is why it becomes so important to support your local brands and businesses – it is more sustainable to buy from a local company who uses local products and materials in producing their items. You may be wondering how? Well, its quite simple! Local means that the impact on the environment is less – products have not had to be transported over long distances, which means less packaging, less fuel consumption and less energy consumption. Supporting local brands and businesses also means that you are able to support those business owners.
By lessening the demand for international brands means that eventually they will lessen their supply.
How Spectraprint uses this tip in every day business:
Spectraprint supports most local businesses when looking for services and supplies for the company. We also ensure that our paper is certified and has the ability to be recycled.
6. Educate Yourself
As mentioned above, sustainability requires a mindset change and a lifestyle adaption. This can be easily achieved by educating yourself on the best practices of being sustainable. We live in an information age where information is freely available, so it’s a lot easier to access the tools and tips that can help us to educate ourselves on ways to adapt our lifestyles.
Here’s some things to search:
- Local plastic-free businesses
- Eco-friendly products
- Local recycling depots
- Using produce waste to create fertiliser
While finding information is the easier part, the more difficult part is actually applying it.
7. Share your Knowledge
Knowledge is power and once you have educated yourself on being sustainable, it becomes your responsibility to share that with others.
While these tips are about sustainability, the majority of them have the added advantage of cost-saving measures. Ultimately, sustainability is making the conscious effort towards a better tomorrow and the realisation that a collective effort is necessary for future generations to inherit a planet that isn’t scarred by our greed, but was saved by our humanity.
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