inside business WASTE MANAGEMENT
The convenience of effictive recycling
Waste management is something every business must deal with, but here, John Casey, Managing Director for engineering and process at recycling and waste management company Biffa, explains how small business collections are increasingly accessible and cost effective.
“It’s been widely reported that small businesses find it difficult to recycle cost effectively, but most would recycle more if they had access to better facilities.”
material inevitably cannot be recycled into new products. However, the energy inherent within it can be recovered. For example, as food recycling takes the spotlight so does Anaerobic Digestion (AD) – the process of converting the organic carbon in food waste into a natural gas (biogas) which can then be used to generate electricity and heat.
ncreasing legislation, along with escalat- ing landfill costs, means businesses across Scotland are thinking more about what happens to their waste. But there is more to it than simply meeting obligations and safeguarding against rising landfill costs; there remains a significant opportunity to realise the true value of business waste too. The rapid development of markets for recovered materials – both for new products and to generate renewable energy – means the term ‘waste’ is now almost redundant. Increased recycling rates are being seen for businesses across the UK and many compa- nies are striving to reach the elusive ‘zero waste’ to landfill. In fact, supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has already achieved zero waste for its convenience stores. Whilst my own company, Biffa, supports the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ mantra, some
I
WWW.55NORTH.COM
MAKING RECYCLING EASY Traditionally, recycling has seen waste packag- ing such as cardboard, paper, metal cans and plastic bottles (Dry Mixed Recyclables) being collected either as individual materials (source segregated) or all together (co-mingled). Collecting these items co-mingled or source segregated is a much debated issue. However, stats show that the most important thing is to separate the valuable materials from the rest of the residual waste, and make it as easy as possible for people to recycle. Research has shown time and time again that making it easy for people drives increased recycling rates. In fact the top nine councils for recy- cling in the UK all use a co-mingled service, simply because it’s easy for consumers. And the same applies to businesses too. Small businesses (fewer than 49 employ- ees) in Scotland account for 3.6 million tonnes of waste each year (SEPA 2009), a third of which comes from the retail and wholesale sector. Much of the waste is made up of traditionally recyclable materials such as paper, glass and plastics and increasingly these businesses are realising that recycling these materials is an opportunity they cannot afford to ignore. The tax levied on every tonne
of waste disposed of via landfill is currently increasing by £8 per tonne per year and will double by 2014.
This is a clear deterrent for any business to send waste material to landfill, yet it is not always an easy task to source recycling services. It’s been widely reported that small businesses find it difficult to recycle cost effec- tively, but most would recycle more if they had access to better facilities – 95% of small busi- nesses according to research by the Federa- tion of Small Businesses. Many local authorities do not run a waste or recycling service for SMEs and the small volumes of waste they produce often means they cannot attract commercial companies’ services. Working together to pool waste and recycling collection services is one way to tackle the issue but working with a waste contractor is essential to reap the biggest rewards. Biffa recognises the challenges faced by many SMEs and so works with businesses to find a solution that fits by carrying out free waste audits. Biffa has also recently launched a new internet service which is making it much easier to access waste and recycling collection services.
Whilst the variety and volume of waste generated by the SME sector will continue to present a real challenge, many businesses today do have ‘zero-waste’ aspirations. As long as the waste and recycling sector continues to view waste as an asset, it will continue to develop and improve the technology in use whilst at the same time investing in waste collection infrastructure to improve access to recycling.
FEBRUARY 2012 l SCOTTISH LOCAL RETAILER l 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56