Our Journey Towards a Single-Use Plastic Free Office Space

Here at Sykes Holiday Cottages, we are committed to reducing our environmental impact. One of our key impact missions is to reduce and remove single-use plastics from our office spaces.

In 2024 we made great strides in our journey to become a single-use plastic free business! From plastic audits and changes at head office to partnerships; we’re committed to our pledge.

Read on to learn more about how we’re making this happen…

Understanding Our Plastic Use

Before we could begin, we had to understand our plastic use. To take action, we researched how other organisations have successfully created single-use plastic-free office spaces; this inspired us to conduct a plastic audit. The plastic audit enabled us to understand the scale of the issue in our offices. This involved collecting, separating and counting all plastic waste to identify which single-use plastic items were most commonly used.

Our findings revealed that the greatest contributors to our single-use plastic waste were:

• Drinks bottles
• Food containers
• Soft plastics such as crisp packets

Making it Happen

Learning from the results of the plastic audit, we started to make a change by removing the following from Head Office:

• Disposable coffee cups (we used up to 1,000 per week prior!)
• Blue roll for cleaning work surfaces
• Washing up liquid

We’ve replaced disposable coffee cups with reusable ceramic mugs, blue rolls with a 100% plastic and chemical-free compostable alternative and disposable washing-up liquid bottles with refillable options.

To keep working towards a positive change, we are working with Sustainable Cheshire to develop practical solutions to support us in reducing our office waste and our employees in reducing their single-use plastic waste. We’re proud to be the Business Ambassador for their Plastic Free Chester Taskforce Surfers Against Sewage Champions, which sees us join other like-minded businesses taking action to protect our seas, oceans, and wildlife.

What’s Next?

We will continue our journey to remove more single-use plastics across our offices and introduce practical solutions that are better for our planet. We hope our employees will be inspired to look for ways to reduce their single-use plastic waste at home and that we can encourage other businesses to reduce their environmental impact!

If this insight has left you wanting to learn more about Sykes Holiday Cottages’ commitment to the planet, check out our Impact section or learn more in our latest Impact report.