New compostable membership card

Members expressed the wish for the Mountain Training Association to become more sustainable, so one of the actions we have undertaken is that we have sourced a new membership card that is completely compostable.

Although this may not seem like a large change, with nearly 9000 members, that would mean that we would have had 9000 membership cards going to landfill annually.

We looked into degradable and biodegradable plastics, but these would take up to three years to degrade, which would mean that there would still be some 27000 pieces of plastic in the environment.

Recycled and recyclable cards were rejected as there are so many chemicals involved in the recycling process that this was not seen as a suitable alternative.

Therefore, we have opted for a fully compostable card, which means that it can be placed in your food waste/composting bin for it to breakdown naturally.

The new cards came into use from Monday the 1st May 2023, and should be with you upon renewal of your membership.

We are also looking into paper wraps for physical copies of The Professional Mountaineer magazine as, although the current plastic wrap is recyclable, for the reasons outlined above this is not our preferred option. We are also looking at the options available for creating a quality, interactive, digital version of the magazine which may be more accessible and user friendly than the current digital PDF and may enable more members to opt for the magazine in digital format only.