With news on: Biffa’s report; Epping Forest launches rewards scheme; Veolia’s South London CAs; UKCM accredited from Alcumus; and Birmingham student wins waste prize.
Biffa report shows businesses don’t recycle food
Biffa has revealed that food service businesses are throwing a big percentage of inedible food waste in the bin – enough to power over 65,000 homes a year.
Biffa has revealed that food service businesses are throwing a big percentage of inedible food waste in the bin
A study by the waste and recycling business showed that businesses create over 1 million tonnes of inedible food waste a year and a third of businesses admit they are not doing anything to recycle it.
If this waste was segregated and used as an energy source, it could power over 65,000 homes through anaerobic digestion.
Fran Morrissy, spokesperson for Biffa said: “We were pleased to find that the majority of businesses think waste management is important but were surprised that so many don’t have a process in place for dealing with their waste.
The research also revealed that almost half of businesses in the UK were unaware of the cost savings they could make as a result of segregating food waste.
Fran continued: “Biffa’s Food Waste Collection Service can help businesses to identify how much inedible food waste they’re producing and put a strategy in place to segregate it ready for collection, where it can then be used to generate energy and benefit local communities.”
Epping Forest launches recycling rewards scheme
Epping Forest district council is launching a recycling rewards scheme to incentivise residents to recycle their waste correctly.
The ‘Recycling- It’s Worth It!’ scheme will give away prizes to top performing residents and blocks of flats
The ‘Recycling- It’s Worth It!’ scheme, delivered by scheme provider Local Green Points, will give away prizes to top performing residents and blocks of flats, as well as community prizes of £1,750 for local charities.
Local Green Points will visit over 1,600 properties in the district to offer recycling advice and help residents sign up to the scheme.
Once residents have activated their accounts they are placed into a community and can start to earn ‘Green Points’ by recycling more.
Residents can also earn Green Points by reporting what they are recycling, using a recycling centre or reporting fly tipping.
The scheme will be supporting local charities and community projects, including Epping Forest Community Transport and Safer Places.
South London residents happy with Veolia CAs
A survey has shown that residents in south London are satisfied with their household reuse and recycling centres – which are run by Veolia.
The six centres located across Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton, are operated by Veolia since 2015 on behalf of the South London Waste Partnership.
A survey of more than 6,700 site users over the last 12 months has shown that 98% of users say they feel safe on the sites.
And 97% of users are happy with the greeting they received on arrival and general helpfulness of the site staff and 96% are satisfied with the length of time they had to queue.
Christine Stacey, contract manager for Veolia in south London, said: “We are delighted with these findings as we have made a significant investment in improving these sites; Purley Oaks HRRC in Croydon being an example.
“We can see that these changes have been popular with site users and we’ll continue to conduct the surveys with residents to ensure we take on board feedback that will drive further improvements.”
UKCM accredited from Alcumus
Repair and refurbishment company, UK Container Maintenance (UKCM) has been awarded an accreditation from Alcumus SafeContractor for its health and safety performance.
Alcumus SafeContractor provides compliance risk management, certification and accreditation services for businesses.
Emma Elston, CEO of UKCM, explained: “The stringent evaluation as part of Alcumus SafeContractor audit examines our health and safety procedures and our track record in the area of safe practice.
Gemma Archibald, director of Alcumus SafeContractor said: “More companies need to understand the importance of adopting good risk management in the way that UKCM has done.
“The firm’s high standard has set an example which hopefully will be followed by other companies within the sector.”
Birmingham student wins waste prize
A Birmingham City University student has won a prize for his video encouraging students across the city to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Alexander Deiry was awarded £500 worth of Amazon vouchers for his winning entry into the Zero Hero Challenge
Alexander Deiry was awarded £500 worth of Amazon vouchers for his winning entry into the Zero Hero Challenge.
Mr Deiry’s entry into the prize included a short film focused on the idea of students taking a selfie as they threw items away at special ‘WasteWatch’ points across the city.
Cllr Lisa Trickett, who led the prize ceremony, said: “Freshers’ Week is the ideal time to remind students of the importance of recycling while they settle into their new routines.
“Birmingham has some of the brightest student minds in the country and we know many are already living ‘Zero Hero’ waste reducing lifestyles. All the entrants to our competition made videos that showed their passion for reducing waste, but Alexander just pipped the rest to the post.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com General
