National recycling initiative inspired by Abigroup employee
Source: Abigroup - www.abigroup.com.au
21 May 2010
Through making a couple of enquiries and suggestions an Abigroup employee has inspired Dulux Australia to undertake a national recycling initiative.
Louise McCreath, who works as Environmental Coordinator on Abigroup’s Queensland Children’s Hospital project, noticed that a large number of paint containers that were being used were going to land fill and not being recycled.
“I decided to follow up and ask why this was happening and explore if there was a better way to do things,” she said.
“I approached Dulux Australia’s Queensland Commercial Manager Heath Knott to ask if they had any environmental initiatives in place and to pursue the possibility of reusing or recycling the used paint containers.
“They did not have any formal recycling mechanism in place for used paint containers and after some initial discussion they decided to conduct a detailed feasibility study on the issue.”
Following suggestions made by Louise, Dulux Australia is now in the detailed planning phase of rolling out a national program for the bulk recycling of paint containers which is of no extra cost to painters, contractors, manufacturers or projects.
“The reduction in carbon emissions that will result from this one act is expected to be very significant and the data collected by Dulux Australia following the implementation of the program will be shared with us,” said Louise.
“I am excited that my one simple enquiry has led to an Australia wide environmental program and hope this story inspires other employees to take the initiative to follow up and ask questions when it comes to environmental management and sustainability.”
Abigroup’s National Sustainability Manager Sarah Marshall, congratulated Louise on taking the initiative and said it was a fantastic example of the company’s sustainability program Ability in action.
“Louise has demonstrated her commitment to sustainability, she has demonstrated leadership, and she has demonstrated that simply questioning the smallest things has the potential to lead to significant change,” said Sarah.
“Congratulations and thank you for championing sustainability at Abigroup.”
Dulux Australia has sent a letter thanking Louise for her “professional insight and initiative that have resulted in a nationwide environmental concept being adopted by Dulux Australia.”