SUSTAINABLE SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR – TOTAL FM SERVICE
OCS WasteLine RUNNER UP
A
n established part of the OCS Group UK Ltd, OCS WasteLine handles virtually all waste requirements utilising the specialist resources of
approved network partners and working closely with internal stakeholders to ensure our customers benefit from our diverse services.
Sustainability is at the core of our business model and we offer recycling programmes across entire businesses and multiple sites or, where a current recycling programme already exists, we can conduct a ‘health check’ on the existing strategy, proposing improvements and refinements where necessary. Our innovative working partnership and relationship with a major client in the UK finance sector is demonstrated through the following case study. Strand, OCS’s established London brand, has held a reputation as one of the capital’s leading niche contract cleaning businesses for over 30 years. Strand’s ethos is firmly based on an understanding of the client’s culture and building and maintaining real partnerships. In the case of this client case study therefore, OCS had an understanding from an early stage of the importance of providing a sustainable service to the customer with minimal environmental impact.
THE CLIENT
The client is a business which has been established for over 300 years with many thousands of employees across a number of locations in the UK. Their facilities are first-class and the client strives to remain ahead of its competitors by operating the company-wide mantra of excellence of service.
In 2008, following an intensive competitive tendering exercise, Strand was delighted to be awarded the contract to provide cleaning, porterage, fabric maintenance and specialist services to this large UK client.
ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS Fundamental to this client’s corporate values is its approach to the Green Agenda. Whilst corporate policy sets out the strategy for achieving the company’s environmental goals, individual regional offices have the scope to implement
42| SUSTAINABLE FM AWARDS 2010
initiatives with head office’s approval. On site, the client’s environmental credentials are founded on the introduction, over many years, of a wide range of green initiatives involving waste management, recycling and even conservation. These having included reducing waste paper, avoiding the use of chemicals and a drive to re-use materials, for example, by purchasing picnic benches made of recycled polymers.
Strand has been heavily involved with many of these initiatives with account director Lawrence Pateman taking a lead role in many projects. Therefore Lawrence was keen to introduce OCS WasteLine and latest innovations to the client.
NEXT STEPS
An annual Green Day is this client’s vehicle of communicating environmental initiatives and for raising a growing awareness amongst staff of the importance of being ‘green’, both at work and at home.
Headlining this year’s Green Day was the new food waste recycling system which was recently installed through OCS WasteLine by IMC.
As the suppliers of waste and recycling services to all the client’s UK sites via Strand, OCS WasteLine highlighted the benefits of IMC’s innovative food waste recycling solution.
As director for OCS WasteLine Richard Earl explains: “ We are constantly reviewing the market-place to ensure we are able to deliver best value to our clients. Even with our vast experience, food waste has proved to be a particularly difficult waste stream to dispose of. Landfill costs are set to continue to escalate and the pre-existing method of bagging and binning waste before compacting and sending it to landfill was becoming increasingly untenable – financially, logistically and environmentally.”
Richard and account director
Lawrence were able to take the client to see the IMC system in operation at a large catering site near Winchester where our client’s staff and their caterers could ascertain the true value of the system. The client stated: “We were able to talk to, and ask questions of, so many different people – from those involved in the initial selection process to staff whom the system
impacts upon and those that actually use the equipment and the end product. We managed to obtain a thorough and realistic understanding of its suitability to our own operation.”
THE RESULTS IMC’s pioneering solution to the disposal of food waste is the result of extensive research completed by the Waste Management Faculty at world renowned Imperial College London and has won numerous awards from both the catering and waste management and recycling industries.
It uses an IMC Food Waste Disposer to first macerate the food waste before extracting the solid fraction from the macerated waste by means of an IMC ‘WastePro’ Dewaterer.
The resultant dewatered waste is mixed with a small quantity of compressed wood pellets and loaded into an In Vessel Composter. It emerges 6 to 8 weeks alter as high quality compost that conforms with the Standards for Composted Materials BSI PAS100. At the client’s premises, much of the food waste is produced by the on-site catering facilities where breakfast, lunch and dinner are all served on a daily basis. Kitchens have been fitted with an IMC Food Waste Disposer and Dewaterer, through which all food waste is processed as it is produced. Whilst the grey water resulting from the process is dispensed to drain, the residual solid fraction is captured in small, lidded bins. Every afternoon, the bins are picked up by Strand operatives from collection points and taken to an In Vessel Composter (IVC) located on campus that has been reserved for food waste treatment. After weighing the dewatered food waste, the requisite wood pellets are added before emptying the waste into the IVC. In order to ensure that the composting process is functioning correctly, a daily log of the temperatures within the vessel is taken. Agi Mihalyka, Strand contract
manager at the site is full of praise for the system: “Since the equipment was installed, the process of adopting it has been seamless. All staff involved in operating the equipment have received certificates confirming their training; this includes the 10 to 12 people in each kitchen as well as the 2 members of Strand staff who have been trained on the use of the IVC.”
Any concerns that the composting
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