We try to use less, less often.
We're working to minimise our waste. That includes materials from old mobiles and network equipment, batteries, circuit boards, air conditioning equipment and office waste.
Our ongoing target is to recycle or reuse over 95 percent of our network equipment waste. In 2006, we reused or recycled 99.6 percent of network waste including electronic equipment, phone masts, air-conditioning systems, equipment cabinets and batteries.
Some of the waste from our network is classed as hazardous, including chemicals in batteries and ozone depleting substances in air-conditioning systems. The key ozone depleting substance still in use is R-22, an HCFC refrigerant gas used in the air-conditioning systems at our older sites. Approximately 40 percent of the systems in our network still use R-22 and we are phasing this out.
In 2005, we bought 32 tonnes of office paper, 82 percent of which contained more than 80 percent recycled paper. Our overall paper consumption reduced by almost three tonnes in 2006 and we recycled over 40 tonnes of paper through our office collection schemes.
