EVENT CLEAN-UPS
RECYCLE FEST
With many music festivals and outdoor events across the country trying their best to boost their green credentials, we hear from Ryans Cleaning, event cleaning experts, who tell us how they have helped their clients join the push for a sustainable future.
As we approach the season end of outdoor festivals and events in 2015, the emphasis on helping our clients work towards a more sustainable future became ever stronger. At Ryans Cleaning we recognise that resources need to be managed in a more sustainable way today to ensure we preserve the world’s natural resources for future generations.
We constantly seek to advise our clients on how they can introduce waste minimisation projects whilst looking to re-use what wastes are left at events once the festival goers have returned home. An example of this is the partnerships we have formed with businesses and charities that salvage the camping equipment that is left behind after major events, cleaning it up then giving it a second life.
We implement robust strategies across events to make sure we maximise the amount of recyclable material that we remove from the waste stream. We have an extensive network of partners throughout the UK and Ireland which provides us with the infrastructure to deliver “Zero Waste To Landfill” solutions for most of the residual waste created that cannot go through the recycling process, this residual waste is usually turned into electricity that goes back into the national grid.
Clean recyclables is the name of the game, one of the biggest
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challenges we face at outdoor events and festivals is keeping recyclable materials clean so they are not rejected by the end processors.
Working with our clients over many years we have developed a “three bin” strategy that we have rolled out across our whole portfolio this year. Mixed recycling containers for cardboard, paper, plastic bottles and cans as well as food waste containers for compostable material are positioned next to the traditional general waste bins both back and front of house. The containers are colour coded in line with WRAP recommendations (i.e. orange for mixed recycling) to encourage users to separate their wastes and dispose of them correctly. We use signage that follows the colour scheme as well as following the same theme with any internal or external training or training literature.
Where we have worked with our clients to introduce this system it has been very successful in increasing recycling rates, as festival goers are keen to do their bit by separating out their wastes as they would do at home. We also look to compliment this system with our cardboard and can miners who are targeted to collect clean cardboard and metal drinks cans whilst the events are on and to bring them back to our mobile recycling centres. The cans are separated into steel and aluminium by our automated can separator. They
are then baled into mill-sized bales ready for onward transportation and processing. Clean cardboard is also baled using the same machine.
The amount of metal and wood waste that is traditionally disposed of from the back stage operations is surprisingly high – having recognised this we now provide “Metal Only” and “Wood Only” large containers so the production teams can separate these waste streams, significantly helping recycling rates. As and when the event dictates we also collect mixed glass separately, therefore at any one festival we could be collecting and processing as many as six different waste streams.
The final part of the process is reporting back to the client exactly what has been removed from site, where it went to and how it was re- used, recycled or disposed of. The ability to provide clear management information is becoming more and more important as companies look to track their carbon footprints and set “green” targets. At Ryans Cleaning we are constantly liaising with our customers in order to develop a suite of reports that gives them the data they require.
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Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2015 | 57
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