The Life Of An Eco-researcher Intern At Bird & Blend

Hi everyone, I’m Stanley!

To give you some background, I’ve been part of Bird & Blend for two months as an eco-researcher intern. With my internship coming to an end, I thought i’d let you know what i’ve been working on and what eco changes the company has seen during my time here.

I started by working in all departments of the company for a day each. This involved working shifts in the Brighton and Borough stores, as well as warehouse and fulfilment. This first week gave me a feel for the company as well as ideas on eco-improvements! From there on, i’ve done the majority of my work in the Nest (apart from the odd warehouse/fulfillment shift when we’ve been extra busy).

With regards to packaging, the 3 main goals were to change our sample cups, stand up pouches (for our refills) and our single serve packaging. With us going through over 450,000 sample cups in the past 12 months, I felt like this was the issue I should tackle first. This is why we’re switching to paper sample cups! Find out more in my sample cup blog (link here).

Pouches and single serves are a more complicated issue. Our tea has to remain fresh for two years, and all the compostable pouch options tested before my arrival ended up leaking tea over time! Several exciting stand up pouch and single serve options are now in testing. Unfortunately, as it takes months to know how good they are, we won’t know the extent of their success until i’m gone, but hopefully you’ll see them soon!

You may have seen my eco-survey that hit the socials and email a few weeks ago. The results from these were largely positive and showed a great interest in the plastic usage at Bird & Blend. To clear up some confusion on our ‘plastic looking’ non plastic packaging, I made another blog! (link here)

I felt that if we’re making all these changes to make the company more eco-friendly, we had to make sure the Nest was setting an example. Read more on what we’re doing in the office to make sure the nest is as green as can be here (link office blog)

I’ll try and keep this bit short but there’s also some less exciting things i’ve been working on. This included auditing our waste disposal companies to look at our waste to landfill! I also audited all our suppliers on their eco and ethics policies as well as looking into our gas & electricity providers to push for a move towards green energy companies. There are some smaller less exciting things i’ve been working on but I don’t want to send you to sleep so i’ll leave it there!

Due to the length of the internship, there are plenty of other top secret ideas that I haven’t had time to put in place. Hopefully you’ll see these changes once i’ve left!

It’s been a fantastic experience being part of such a close knit team with great values and has taught me so much! All the best to Bird & Blend and all the teabirds!