Packaging waste in focus

Rosderra Irish Meats, the largest pork processing company in Ireland with five production facilities, participated in the Green Teams Programme in 2017 and ran a project to tackle packaging waste and increase awareness on waste minimisation onsite and with suppliers. The aims were to minimise the volume of unnecessary packaging from suppliers and to reduce the volume of raw material packaging wasted onsite.

The Rosderra team achieved reductions in waste of just under 18 tonnes in one year by working with suppliers on incoming deliveries and minimising the volume of Rosderra own-product packaging going to waste.

The first steps included a review of operations on each site and issuing of a questionnaire to suppliers on their use of packaging. The process also involved site staff in highlighting the “worst offending” suppliers. The results were used to develop a specification in relation to packaging for deliveries to Rosderra sites. This also led to improvements in purchasing procedures to avoid over-purchase of packaging stock which was also causing storage problems. The aim of these measures, coupled with a Kanban just-in-time system to maintain inventory levels, was to eliminate the practice of over-purchasing of items, and maintain stock levels according to JIT principles. Following a successful trial at the Edenderry site the new system is being rolled out to the remaining sites.

The second part of the project involved minimising the volume of Rosderra own-product packaging going to waste, addressing material such as the number of product labels produced, disposable apparel, cardboard, timber pallets and non-production waste such as that from the canteen. A review of the main site and production areas led to the implementation of the following measures: improved and new procedures and storage system; retraining of personnel emphasising the importance of following procedures and the unnecessary wastage occurring; feedback to staff on avoidable waste produced; improved co-operation between the packing and the production planning departments to reduce the number of labels produced; increase in reusable apparel; and increased repair of returnable packaging;

In a parallel ‘Lean’ project on the use of pallets, a more stringent return and stock control policy for pallets achieved a dramatic increase in the number of pallets being returned into the system with a saving of €117,000 and 28,000 pallets per year.