We have now eliminated over 9 million pieces of single use plastic at Canary Wharf through our Breaking The Plastic Habit programme, but we are not stopping there. Moving forward we aim to have most of our retailers commit to reducing plastic through providing more communication to retailers on our plans and targeting the issues they deem important.
Since achieving Plastic Free Communities status, Canary Wharf is dedicated to going beyond zero waste by encouraging tenants, occupiers, and visitors to reduce their impact.
We conducted a survey with 100 of our retail tenants to understand what drives their behaviour around single plastic use.
In summary:
60% of our retailers have already committed to BTPH.
Our retailers identified three plastics as being the biggest issue at Canary Wharf:
- Food packaging (24%)
- Plastic Bottles (24%)
- Wrapping, i.e. cellophane, shrink(18%)
Canary Wharf is in a unique position to influence our visitors, employees, and tenants to spark action and embed a new culture. So how exactly can we do it?
Simplify consumer choices
Through easier and better recycling options, utilising innovative technology or completely removing single use plastics from stores and businesses, we will eliminate the burden and confusion that surrounds single use plastic.
Our actions include the Deposit Return Scheme, refill stations and removal of single use plastics from retail.
Educate people and industry
Through sharing lessons learned, insight and case studies, we will progress the single use plastic conversation and extend our impact beyond our space. Our communications will ignite a greater understanding of the individual impact and encourage partnerships to accelerate success and the cultural shift we need as a society.
Our actions include collaboration with Refill, community events, reports, and case studies.
Collaborate with industry & partners
Through working with others to initiate a circular city district, ensuring that materials are disposed of within the Estate and captured and recovered to add value and create new markets. We will work with others to pilot innovative technologies will help identify new scalable opportunities that can be adopted nationwide to reduce single use plastics.
Our collaborations include organisations such as Refill, and Surfers Against Sewage.