Published: January 10, 2011
Oldest Retailing Store 'Sainsbury' Goes Green
By Claudia Strasbaugh
Just when some of us thought Penny's or Sears were our oldest retailers, historic reality arrives. Spending on consumables like our early settlers, were born in the land of Fish and Chips.
Sainsbury, being one of the nation's oldest retailers from when it was founded in London in 1869 through to today. How could it survive all the trends and fads shoppers fall prey to?
This retailer has made unique transformation to match our nation's retail shopping, impulse buying, and eating habits since the mid-19th century.
Nations Oldie Rallies Again
Sainsbury's archive is located at the Museum of London in Docklands. There it's open to the public. Visitors can view displays from the collection and browse a range of digital and paper-based resources from the library and archives, including reference books, image files, films and journals covering a long history of Sainsbury's as well as learn about shopping, the history of the docks, and explore that entire local area.
This Museum offers a separate search room but you must make an appointment for more in-depth research if using material from their archive collections.
How They Stay Ahead
Never to be left behind Sainsbury's 28 Scottish stores will be the greenest in the country this supermarket giant announced. It is prepared to pioneer a scheme to divert waste away from landfill in its Scottish stores.
Under the initiative all its unsold food will be sent to a biomass plant near Motherwell to be turned into electricity. The company said the move would see 42 tonnes of waste a week kept from landfill. Plans were unveiled at the Zero Waste conference in Edinburgh.
Sainsbury's said its initial aim was to stop sending all UK food waste to landfill by this summer but has now been fast-tracked with plans for the 28 Scottish stores. Food waste from the stores will be taken to the biomass plant in Lanarkshire, operated by the PDM Group. There it will be converted to bio-fuel then used to generate power.
Many are convinced businesses throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK need to demonstrate their commitment to finding workable, commercially sound solutions to today's environmental problems.
Sainsbury's environment manager means "Each tonne of food waste diverted from landfill by Sainsbury's will generate enough power for 500 homes and will save 3 tonnes of CO2 compared to fossil fuels. "Scotland is at the forefront of our wider UK plan to completely cut our dependence on landfill."
They added, "This is the first step in a plan that will see Sainsbury's stop using landfill for food waste by this summer and stop using landfill completely by the end of the year."
A single truck will be used to travel to all the Sainsbury's stores in Scotland to collect the waste and deposit it at the site in Motherwell.
The company said this method of collection, rather than using single skips at individual stores, will allow about 336 lorries to be taken off the road.
Claudia Strasbaugh is a NewsBlaze and freelance writer who founded Scripps Ranch/Mira Mesa Writer's Guild. See more of Claudia's work at Dinner on a Dollar
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