When spring arrives the garden centre Gaarne feels it immediately. Thousands of customers spend the first warm days searching for new plants and garden tools for their garden projects this year. This swirl of activity also makes the staff busy in the warehouse, where they quickly unpack goods delivered and move them into the sales areas. Left in the stock area are heaps of cardboard, plastic, and other combustible waste, which must to be sorted before it is sent to combustion or recycling. Gaarne generates in total approx. 77000 lbs of waste every year.

“Just until last year we collected all waste in small tipping containers which were emptied into a compactor. This compactor could contain approx. 22,000 lbs of waste, which was taken to combustion at the refuse disposal plant, where we had to pay a fee of 180 USD per 2,200 lbs.”, says Sten Toender, head of department.

For about 20 years all waste was handled like this. Suddenly the refuse disposal plant informed Gaarne that they had to sort cardboard and plastic separately. In the beginning they put plastic waste into boxes but this turned out to be a very expensive solution, and it also took up a lot of space.