Every year, the need to transition towards sustainable practices becomes more urgent. Wyma equipment is built to help producers reduce wastage in the processing line, yet we’re also always trying to improve the waste footprint at our own site. One of our biggest areas of concern from a sustainability point-of-view is packaging – the plastic we have traditionally used to ship our products and the cardboard we receive many of our supplies and materials in.

Statistics from the European Union show that from 2007 to 2016, paper and cardboard made up 41% of all packaging waste material, more than double the volume of plastic or glass (19% each)¹, with around 165 billion packages shipped in the U.S. each year, roughly equating to more than one billion trees worth of cardboard².

Reducing the overall amount of packaging we use is an important goal, and recycling and reusing the materials we have can make a big impact on our sustainability progress. Enter Jadon Naidoo, Wyma Spare Parts Coordinator.

Before joining Wyma five years ago, Jadon spent time in logistics for the aviation industry, another role involving problematic packaging waste. Drawing on his experience, he saw an area where Wyma could improve its sustainability efforts by not only reducing the need for plastic packaging in shipping our products but also massively scaling back the volume of packaging waste we send to landfill. That idea was the cardboard perforator.

Wrapping spare parts in our repurposed cardboard packaging; a shipment almost ready to be sent.

After doing some calculations to support his case, Jadon pitched the idea of investing in the machine to the Wyma leadership team. Given that the idea essentially presents a win-win (reducing our dependence on plastic packaging for shipping as well as our cardboard waste) it was an easy sell, and the cardboard perforator was soon established in Wyma’s After Sales department.

In the past, Wyma’s After Sales shipments to all corners of the world were protected with plastic packaging, much of which would end up in the landfill. Thanks to Jadon’s idea for the cardboard perforator, we now ship many of our orders with repurposed cardboard packaging. We’ve significantly reduced the amount of cardboard we’re sending to landfill, while potentially reducing our spend on plastic packaging by 95%.

Innovative thinking isn’t just an element of our product design, it’s a philosophy that our team brings to every part of the business. Thanks to ideas like Jadon’s, we’re building a more sustainable and responsible workplace.

¹ https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Packaging_waste_statistics#Waste_generation_by_packaging_material

² https://www.fastcompany.com/40560641/can-online-retail-solve-its-packaging-problem