Your Questions Answered.
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What is our Environmental Policy?
At Grow Wild, we care about what we do and the impact it has on the environment. Embedded in the very core of what we do relates to promoting proper treatment of the environment. We thought we would let you know where we stand on this issue.By the nature of the service we offer, we are committed to supplying food produced without any harmful side effects to the environment, not treated with chemical herbicides, pesticides, and GM free. The best things in life are free, and being able to do something (takes a little effort, but not at a great cost) which contributes positively to the environment is a must, as far as we are concerned.
We are committed to:
- Recycling. We re-use boxes until they have come to the end of their useful life, after which all cardboard is uplifted for recycling. The wooden crates, when they are past their best are recycled locally into wood chippings.
All paper waste generated in the office is recycled (or is shredded for a local funeral director’s use in pillows), as are egg cartons returned by our customers, and shrink-wrap that keeps the boxes from falling off incoming pallets!
We aim to keep fresh waste to a minimum by sourcing from quality suppliers. However, in order to supply top-notch quality fresh food to our customers, each item is quality checked before being packed, and some items are discarded as substandard. All fresh produce waste is sent to a local organic farmer for either feeding to his organic Tamworth piggies, or for making organic compost.
- Packaging. We aim to keep packaging to a minimum, and therefore if possible, we put unpackaged fresh produce directly into boxes. Where packaging is required (so that leafy goods don’t wilt before they reach our customers, and tomatoes don’t get squashed), we use bags made from recycled paper, and clear bags made without polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to meet the standards set out by the Soil Association.
If you are a customer and would prefer NO packaging at all – we would be delighted to hear from you.
Our bought-in boxes branded Grow Wild are made from 100% recycled materials.
- Efficient use of resources. In relation to transport, our vans are making multi-drops, thereby reducing the number of individual trips made by individual consumers. If one of our vans is making 70 drops of groceries per day, that is saving 70 individual trips to the supermarket!
Our drivers’ schedules are always organised in the most distance-efficient way so that they aren’t zig-zagging all over Scotland.
- Operations. We always use environmentally friendly cleaning products for our packing area, and a lot of elbow grease!
- We don’t use or deal with: chemical coatings, dyes or inks that contain phthalates, materials or substances derived from genetically modified organisms, excess packaging, wood that has been treated with preservatives.
We keep checking into better ways of doing things in a commitment to continuous improvement (e.g. we are looking into alternatives - like compostable bags, alternative bags for potatoes, etc).
We also monitor our progress, and review our environmental policy and processes annually.
For further information on waste minimisation, SWAG is a useful website to have a look at.
- Recycling. We re-use boxes until they have come to the end of their useful life, after which all cardboard is uplifted for recycling. The wooden crates, when they are past their best are recycled locally into wood chippings.
