On March 10, 2011, hundreds of people from all over BC gathered to talk trash, and it was the hot ticket of the week. This sold-out show was the Metro Vancouver Zero Waste Challenge, a one-day working seminar that brought success stories, inspiration, and ideas together to bring the whole region one giant step closer to waste-free living. The lunchtime keynote speaker was none other than London Drugs Senior VP Clint Mahlman, our Executive champion of all things green.
Clint shared with the group London Drugs’ successes with reducing waste within a competitive corporate environment, showing other business leaders in the room that it is possible to be green and meet business objectives at the same time.
The reduction of waste on a per-store basis was one clear success story. The Lethbridge store, for example, has gone from 4 bins of garbage per week to one bin every 10 days since 2007. Overall London Drugs has seen landfill reductions from 50% – 66% throughout the chain.
Clint also featured some small but significant changes, including the new organics collection for composting at London Drugs’ head office. Bring Back the Pack and our unique Styrofoam recycling program was also showcased, and here Clint gave full credit to London Drugs’ customers for making the effort to divert over 92,000 lbs of styrofoam from landfills in the last 3 years. So way to go, London Drugs shoppers. Keep recycling, composting and Bringing Back your Packaging. Together we can send even better stats to the next Zero Waste Conference.
