Create signage and regular communication to help staff and customers avoid single-use plastics.

How you can do it

Businesses choose to get involved in Plastic Free July to help staff and customers to choose the alternatives to single-use plastics in the business and to support a wider movement to reduce plastic waste across the community.

Some businesses aim to help staff and customers to actively bring in their own reusable alternatives, including reusable water bottles and coffee cups. Others get involved in communicating all of the Plastic Free July ideas that help staff and customers to choose to refuse single-use plastic at home and when shopping.

When you’ve chosen the goals and messages that suit your type of business, we’ve got some great resources that you can download.

Businesses often give staff responsibility for creating and displaying signage or create social media content for their role in Plastic Free July.

However you choose to get your message across, be sure to keep it positive and action-orientated. Focussing on the solution rather than the problem is often more effective in engaging people to get on board.

Taking the next steps:

If you’re looking into creating signage, prominent display areas include:

• The entrance of your business.
• Checkouts, where people can choose to refuse single-use plastics.
• In the bin area, with information on what goes in them (e.g. food waste in compost bin).
• At refillable water stations, with additional signage around so people can find them easily.

It’s important to have your staff on board with changes as well. Train them to be able to communicate the move away from single-use plastics, including:

• Why the business is plastic free.
• Alternatives to single-use plastic that your business has decided to use.
• What goes in which bin and why.

Encourage staff and customers to use the @plasticfreejuly handle in any social media posts they make. It’s a great way of reminding people of the broader community that they’re a part of.

The Impact

• The easier you make it for people to avoid single-use plastic, the more likely they are to get on board with the issue.
• With the right signage and communications, businesses can significantly reduce the amount of single-use plastic they use.

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Encourage staff and customers to participate in Plastic Free July.

How you can do it

Business can become a community leader in Plastic Free July by engaging staff  and customers.

Plastic Free July provides a platform for business to make positive changes and to connect those plastic free choices with the values and aspirations of staff and customers. By sharing solutions to the problems we’re facing, business can engage and inspire others.

A great way of getting people engaged is to ask them what single-use plastics they think are “easy wins”. Together, you can find one plastic free solution at a time to focus on. Some retailers chose Plastic Free July as the moment to switch from offering customers plastic bags to providing them the option to recycle a box. Staff often enjoy challenging each other to switch to reusable water bottles and coffee cups every day.

Incorporating signage into your business is a great way to communicate the issues with customers, and reinforce your company’s values. You can download our posters and resources to get you started.

Taking the next steps

Once you’ve begun to spread the word about Plastic Free July with your customers and staff, the next step is encouraging them to reach out to their networks. You can do this by asking people to share the message on social media, in community groups, and with the local media. Suggest they use the handle @plasticfreejuly so they can feel inspired by the larger community they’re a part of.

You can take the plastic free challenge as a business for a day, a week, a month or even as the start of a permanent change. Success depends upon clear communication with customers about what you’re doing, so they know to bring their own bag, mug, container, etc.

Another great way of facilitating discussion is by hosting a plastic free event or film screening in your business.

The impact

• Many of your staff and customers will bring these new skills home, encouraging friends and family members to get on board as well. That means impacts will reach beyond your business.

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Avoid single-use plastic products when serving food.

How you can do it

To get an idea of just how much single-use plastic you’re using in your business, consider conducting a stock room or bin audit. This will help you to create an inventory of the disposable plastic items currently entering your business, things like milkshake cups, coffee cups, plastic plates, knives, forks. Many businesses switch from single-use items when they realise just how much money is wasted on buying these kinds of products.

Once you’ve established what products you want to avoid, have a chat to your suppliers. Ask them if they have alternatives, and consider the packaging they currently send their products in.

From there, start small with your changes. Pick one thing that you can choose to refuse, and substitute it with an alternative.

Some options include:

• • Swap single-use condiments for large bottles that can be refilled (eg soy sauce, tomato sauce, mayonnaise, butter, jam, vinegar, salt, and pepper).
  • Swap plastic cutlery for reusable metal ones or consider renewable or compostable cutlery for take-away dining.
  • Swap plastic plates for ceramic.
  • Encourage customers to bring their own container when ordering take-away.
  • Encourage customers to bring back cup holders for reuse.
  • Offer filtered water in glasses instead of plastic water bottles.

Taking the next steps

There’s an entire community of businesses choosing to go plastic free, which you can tap into. Reusable cup systems are growing fast, where customers can borrow and bring back a coffee cup to multiple businesses within a network.

It’s common now to have a policy where single-use plastic items are only given to customers when they request it. This can be particularly helpful with products like plastic straws, where some people need them for accessibility reasons.

A little bit of creativity can go a long way. Glass jars, with incentives for returning them, can be a great alternative to disposable takeaway containers.

When you’re finding alternatives to single-use plastic, the most sustainable outcomes are achieved by switching to reusable alternatives rather than single-use paper or compostable packaging.  

The Impact

• Single-use plastics make up 40% of the plastic produced globally. Products used for food service are a large contributor to this, so it’s an area that can make a significant impact.
• Demonstrating your values to your customers is good for business, and can have huge impacts on the environment. Food service businesses reach hundreds of people – the more people who are aware of the issue and the solutions, the more impact will be made.

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Choose to refuse single-use plastic products and packaging in your business.

How you can do it

To get started, conducting a  bin audit can be a great way to understand the single-use plastics you’re generating as a business. It’s also a way to identify the plastics that you could avoid, or recycle.

Once you know what your goals are, consider creating a green team at your business. It’s a way to involve like-minded people, and it can demonstrate to staff that you live out your values as a business.

Many businesses find that amending their procurement policies is a powerful way to reduce single-use plastics (see our procurement card for ideas). This might include asking suppliers to pack without plastic, and requesting reusable / returnable / sustainable packaging such as recycled cardboard boxes or ‘jackets’ to replace plastic wrap on pallets.

If that’s not possible, you might want to look beyond your current suppliers and see if there are others out there offering more sustainable packaging and solutions.

When it comes to doing business, you can make a difference by offering reused packaging to your customers. Many retailers, instead of throwing out cardboard boxes, keep them on hand for customers who forget their bags. Some companies that ships orders, use shredded paper to protect products instead of bubble wrap.

Taking the next steps

There are plenty of extra steps you can take, depending on the industry that you work within. As a starting point, here are just a few plastic free ideas that are taking hold in the business sector:

• Hotels are offering shampoo and other in-room supplies in bulk dispensers instead of single-use plastic bottles.
• Retail shops are shortening the supply chain to have more influence over the packaging used.
• Food businesses are choosing to use reusable containers instead of plastic wrap on food.

The Impact

• Typically, for every one bin-full of waste generated, 70 bin-fulls was generated upstream in making it. That means it’s important to reduce waste through good purchasing practices.

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