Eco-friendly packaging at Santos Organics

At Santos Organics, we reduce waste by choosing environmentally friendly packaging and ask our suppliers to do the same. We prioritise products with minimal packaging, with a preference for food wrapped in biodegradable or compostable packaging, rather than snack or convenience size products. We also only use compostable and biodegradable delivery boxes, tape, and box filler for our online shop delivery box packaging, so you can reuse, recycle or compost them!

In recent years, plastic production and use has increased rapidly, with single-use and disposable plastic being one of the biggest contributors to waste around the world. Researchers estimate that more than 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced globally since the early 1950s and about 60% of that plastic has ended up in either landfill or the natural environment. 

An alarming 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans every year and with more than 99% of plastics being produced from chemicals derived from non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas and coal, it is abundantly clear that urgent action is needed to change this reality! 

For more research and information on the many problems of plastic, see our recent article HERE.

So what can we do to change these statistics?

At Santos Organics, we believe that information, awareness and learning is the first step to creating change! Thankfully, the “Zero-Waste” movement is also spreading globally and a growing number of people are starting to re-evaluate their current lifestyles and changing their perceptions and management of “waste”. 

We are passionate about efficiently managing and reducing the waste at our stores as well as helping our customers and  community reduce the amount of waste produced at home so that together we can find ways to minimise and redirect the amount of rubbish that goes into landfill and our environment. 

Over the years, we have developed and implemented a number of strategies and initiatives in our stores to help achieve these objectives. 

Did you know….

• At Santos Organics, we have never used plastic shopping bags and encourage our customers to either bring their own bags or re-use our cardboard boxes to take their shopping home. We also have a large selection of beautiful baskets and reusable shopping bags for our customers to purchase!
• Our paper bags in our bulk section as well as our Santos Organics pre-pack bags can go straight into your home compost or in the Byron Shire Council green organic waste bin. Our pre-pack bags are made from FSC certified paper lined with a 100% vegetable cellophane so that you can just remove the wire tab (and keep for kid’s craft activities!) and the rest of the bag will compost naturally.
• Our produce bags are also made from a 100% GM-free plant based material so these can also be re-used to line your home compost bin with or disposed of in your home compost or green organic waste bin. These amazing compostable bags and bin liners can also be purchased in-store (as well as other great kitchen items such as compostable or reusable dish cloths and plastic free dish soap bars).
• The cling film used in our produce section is also landfill biodegradable.
• Most of our compostable waste is collected by local farmers and members of our community for commercial or home compost. Some of the fresher scraps are collected to feed local pet chooks and pigs. If you are interested in collecting our scraps, please get in touch with us!
• Many of our produce suppliers collect and re-use the boxes that our produce is delivered in and where possible, our customers can return glass bottles and jars to be collected by the supplier.
• Our bulk section in each of our stores also has a selection of jars that have been sterilised in-store and are ready to use for bulk items.
• At our cafes, customers can receive a discount for bringing their own cups for coffee and our takeaway cups and containers are all compostable!
• For our Santos Organics online customers, the bubble wrap used to protect items in transit contains a special additive composed of organic compounds that causes the plastic to biodegrade through a series of chemical and biological processes when disposed of in a microbe-rich environment, such as a biologically active landfill. When the bubble wrap is disposed of, the additive attracts microbes that can then use this product as food and help with its biodegradation.

When it comes to the sourcing of our products, we encourage our suppliers to consider the full cycle of their products as part of our Ethics Care Check, from their choice of packaging to how it can be disposed of or repurposed in the end.

Where possible, we give preferential consideration to products that can be supplied to us in bulk to eliminate the need for packaging altogether and we offer discounts to our customers each year for bringing their own containers for bulk items during Plastic Free July!

We also have many other ideas and initiatives in the pipeline to help us all reduce our environmental footprint even more so watch this space and our socials for more information and future developments.