Subway, the largest fast food chain in Australia, will be eliminating plastic bags nationwide resulting in an estimated reduction of over 76 tonnes of plastic from the company’s waste stream each year.
The national plastic bag purge is just one part of a larger sustainable effort that includes a number of other initiatives. The use of sandwich baskets so dine-in customers don’t require their sandwich to be wrapped, and scoops used to serve meat to eliminate paper serving trays are additional, every day changes that will work to reduce the business’ environmental impact.
Ben Miles, Senior Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Subway, said the implementation of more environmentally friendly packaging is a priority for the business, with plastic bags being completely phased out by the end of November.
“The changes have made a big impact on the presentation of our food, but most importantly worked to significantly reduce our environmental footprint,” said Miles. “Across the globe, Subway empowers our teams to make sustainable choices that are important to our customers and communities. This elimination was a significant part of our mission in Australia.”
Subway have also introduced a new smaller paper “Sub-Wrap” designed specifically for Six-Inch subs which will further reduce the chain’s waste footprint, with new paper bags made from at least 40% recycled fiber.
“We serve more than 1.8 million subs every week. The elimination of plastic bags at that kind of scale, along with other changes, will make a big difference. We estimate we’ll eliminate approximately 395 tonnes of paper and 175 tonnes of plastic used overall,” continued Miles.
“We have worked very closely with our team and suppliers to reduce or remove packaging throughout our network, and we are proud of the work we have achieved – seemingly small changes that, due to our size, result in a large scale environmental impact.” concluded Miles.
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