As more Australian businesses begin to consider their environmental footprint, new programs have emerged to aid the path to sustainability.
Technology, in particular, has become a key growth area in the past few years.
As the modern worker keeps up to date with the latest devices, e-waste programs have found their way into offices.
Kimberly-Clark Australia, the company behind products like Kleenex and Huggies, established an office sustainability program in 1995.
Jacqueline Fegent-McGeachie, sustainability and corporate social responsibility manager at Kimberly-Clark Australia, said the disposal of old mobile phones has become a key focus area of their program.
“We received feedback from our office based employees that they’d like us to expand our waste reduction strategy to also include recycling of electronic waste,” Fegent-McGeachie said.
Kimberly-Clark reached out to MobileMuster, a not-for-profit mobile phone recycler that helped the company develop an e-waste recycling program to divert old mobile phones from landfill. Kimberly-Clark Australia has recycled 20kg of mobile phone components since 2011.
Rose Read, the recycling manager for MobileMuster, said making sure business data is secure is key.
“Unlike services that refurbish mobile phones, at MobileMuster every single mobile is dismantled and smelted down to its core components in the recycling process, ensuring that no data could ever be recovered,” Read said.
There are also a variety of state government initiatives helping businesses offset their impact on the environment.
