Couple this with the environmental implications of putting our hygiene waste in the ground, from generating harmful greenhouse gases to the devasting impact it can have on local biodiversity, we must find sustainable alternatives for how we deal with our hygiene waste.
There’s no denying the environmental argument against landfill is compelling, but it also makes commercial sense too. Introduced in 1996 as a means of encouraging recycling and waste prevention, the landfill tax charges businesses per tonne of waste they send to landfill.
It’s an environmental tax that’s paid on top of the normal landfill rates by any business, and it’s been steadily rising over the years. Yet despite this, we’re still seeing businesses continue to feel the financial cost of the waste they generate and put it in the ground.
When we look at some of the most common products sent to landfill, for those of us in the washroom services sector, it makes for a sobering read. The Environment Agency estimates we throw away 3bn disposable nappies each year – that’s 8m nappies a day. Sanitary waste products don’t fare much better, with a mammoth 200,000 tonnes being generated and dumped each year.
Typically, hygiene waste is collected and sent to UK landfill sites where it takes centuries to decompose. When you consider that one tampon and a single disposable nappy can both take up to 500 years to decompose, it certainly makes you stop and think what our everyday hygiene products are doing to our planet.
While there’s no denying hygiene products are an essential part of our everyday lives, disposing of them is increasingly becoming an environmental and financial burden. So, what are the alternatives? What can we do to avoid simply putting our hygiene waste in the ground?
Arguably, your first step is to partner with a washroom services provider that takes the issue of hygiene waste management seriously. One that works closely with its customers to ensure the hygiene waste it collects is never sent to landfill and instead, provides a sustainable waste management solution.
When I talk about looking at sustainable solutions for how we deal with our waste, I think we need to start by thinking about how we view our hygiene waste. It’s easy for our customers – and even those of us in the industry – to simply put our hygiene waste in a nappy or sanitary bin and think no more of it.
Rather than seeing it as a burden, something that needs to be buried and forgotten about, what if we think of hygiene waste as a valuable resource? A resource that could be used to heat and power our homes.
We’re seeing great strides made in the industry with some environmentally conscious washroom service providers sending the hygiene waste they collect to energy from waste (EfW) plants where its recovered and converted into renewable energy.
Not only does this mean we no longer need to bury our hygiene waste in the ground but the energy from the process generates a renewable fuel source. This can be either used locally or fed back into the national grid where it is used to power our homes, hospitals, schools and businesses.
This process also reduces our reliance on more
“Recent studies suggest we could only have few years left before we
completely run out of UK landfill capacity.”
traditional forms of fossil fuels, while any residual waste products are used as aggregate in the construction industry.
When you partner with a washroom services company that commits to never sending any of the hygiene waste it collects to landfill and deals with it in an environmentally sustainable way, you’ll be working together to minimise your environmental impact and achieve environmental goals.
It’s the time for not only those of us in the washrooms services industry, but the entire cleaning industry, to really understand what happens to our hygiene waste when it’s collected. Where does it end up? Does it have a negative or positive impact on our society?
By answering these questions positively and knowing we’re taking our environmental responsibility seriously, we can align our services closely with our customers’ expectations. We can play a fundamental part in helping them achieve their environmental and commercial goals and importantly, significantly reduce the amount of hygiene waste that is sent to landfill.
While I recognise many companies in the industry have made, and are continuing to make, real progress, as an industry we must go further. Now more than ever, we need to see greater engagement and a collaborative approach from all companies in our sector, so we can support businesses to improve their economic and environmental performance.
www.simplywashrooms.com
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
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