A trade union bargaining guide on resource efficiency
Mark Otten is the UNISON Environmental Officer at Swansea Council. He has taken action to reduce single-use plastics in the authority:
“As an Environmental Officer for Unison Swansea Council, I am always looking for ways to work with the employer to reduce our carbon footprint. This is ever so much more important in light of announcement of a climate emergency by our country’s governments.
“I was working at Swansea Council’s Corporate Building & Property Services (CB&PS), which carry out an array of work that includes maintenance of council housing stock and public buildings as well as new builds and upgrades to properties to bring them up to Welsh standards. Whilst there I was keen to tackle the problem of single use plastics in the workplace. Dealing with a very large turnover of a variety of stock opened my eyes to the amount of single use packaging that was going through our stores.
“To tackle one item alone, bottled water, would mean a huge reduction in single use plastic going through the stores. To give an indication of what I mean, during the period of March 2018 – March 2019, the procurement of bottled water (single use plastic) for staff who were on sites or mobile was recorded at 990,000 bottles.
Year on year, the issue of spend on bottled water had continued to raise its head, mainly due to the cost. My concern was that of the impact it was having environmentally.
During a health and safety meeting at the end of 2018, the suggestion of personal drinks bottles was put forward. I highlighted that to go along this route would benefit both our environment and reduce cost to CB&PS. Over the next few months, a variety of bottles were sourced and tested out. On the 20th March 2019, 500 one litre aluminium bottles were procured and issued out to staff. In total to date (19/11/2020), 900 bottles have been procured and issued out to staff.
During this time, there has been a saving of £10,000 to CB&PS. More so, the staff themselves feel happy that they have helped in tacking a part of our eco problem which is, plastic pollution. In addition to this, other sections within the local authority have followed this up by adopting the same practice.”