📊 Did you know that the UK construction industry generates over 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year from sites? Or that the average office worker throws away 156 plastic bottles a year?

🌍Plastic Free July is a global movement first organised by the Plastic Free Foundation in 2011 to raise awareness of these issues and promote practical steps to reduce everyday plastic use. At Neilcott, we want to be part of this solution to plastic pollution, so this year our sustainability team have developed initiatives, both on site and in the office, to help our organisation make a difference.

🏆At our Orpington office the Plastic Free Lunch Challenge is underway, with 5 teams competing to see who can bring in the most completely plastic-free lunches by the end of the month, with plastic free prizes on offer for the team with the most brought in! Thanks to our Sustainability Intern Rowena Shivam for heading this up!

🚧Meanwhile, we have challenged our construction site teams to engage with as many plastic waste reducing initiatives as possible, including using a reusable water bottle, separating plastic waste from general waste and engaging with our supply chain to identify any innovative ideas. Additionally, we are rewarding innovative methods to reduce plastic waste on site. At our Staines Hub project, Protec is being used to recycle and remanufacture protective sheeting. We’ve also changed our water cooler supplier across all sites so that empty water containers are taken back by the supplier and refilled, instead of being recycled.

As part of our pledge towards PlasticFreeJuly, we provided each of our employees a reusable water bottle to encourage avoiding disposable plastic bottles and to start thinking about using single-use plastic in a different way!

🎉 Thank you to our brilliant Sustainability Manager Leila du Toit, MIEnvSc CEnv for organising.

➡️ The Ocean Bottle that we have provided staff, was chosen because:
✅ They are made with a minimum of 65% recycled materials
✅ Each bottle sold has funded the collection of 11.4kgs of plastic, equivalent to stopping over 1000 plastic bottles from entering the ocean
✅ The plastic collected is recycled through a traceable system, contributing to the creation of a circular economy.

📢 We believe that even the smallest of actions can have huge impact when we work together.