COMPANY PROFILE
The firm’s 100 head office employees aren’t simply ‘staff’, they are ‘enthusiastic environmentalists’ - First Mile’s website and social media talks the same chatty language as many of its clients.
It operates with an all-electric fleet: First Mile recently became one of the first customers to take delivery of the fully electric Mercedes-Benz eVito PURE L2 vans, which produce zero tailpipe emissions and have a 93-mile average range.
At the heart of the operation is a system by which First Mile’s customers purchase colour-coded sacks to ensure separation of different waste streams prior to collection.
Waste then goes to First Mile’s award- winning 100% renewable energy powered ‘Sacktory®’ at Park Royal in London or to its second site in Birmingham where it is pre- sorted before being delivered to one of 20 recycling partners.
While the business achieves total recycling or reuse, one major element is ongoing support for its clients to cut their waste, workshops for their staff, certificates to work towards, a mobile app to help staff ‘learn’ better recycling habits and another for account running.
“We are trying to shake things up a bit,” adds Bratley. “We are trying to get the sector moving to the 21st century and we’re doing a lot of work to get people to realise this is not a dirty old industry.
“The science around climate change is done - science has proven climate change is real, we know humans are having a massive impact on the planet and we need to do something.
“It’s now time for scientists to stand down and social science to step in. We need psychologists to help people change behaviour.”
To help, First Mile has launched a series of innovative and interesting partnerships and initiatives.
One of the most recent is a pilot partnership with sustainable fashion platform Fashion for Good, which aims to tackle plastic polybag waste.
Often used to store and transport clothing, there are around 180 billion polybags produced each year but just 15% collected for recycling.
The polybag collection project will see the firm collect and recycle polybags from major London fashion names, such as
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Adidas and Stella McCartney, to be recycled into new plastic film products. Meanwhile, its RecycleBox is a low- cost courier service that customers fill with hard-to-recycle items including make-up, beauty product packaging, wine corks, food and drink pouches and water filters.
The scheme was recently recognised at the Business Green Technology Awards, when it was ‘highly commended’ in the Packaging Innovation of the Year category.
First Mile has also partnered with the ultimate disruptors, Brew Dog. The ‘punk’ brewing company launched a scheme offering customers shares in exchange for 50 empty Brew Dog cans, which go to First Mile to be processed.
Also, in January, FrugalPac announced it was teaming up with First Mile to offer customers a recycling service with used cups returned to the same box in which they’ve been delivered, to be returned via the recycling firm’s courier network.
Among the most eye-catching innovations is First Mile’s bike service – the ultimate zero-carbon option – which delivers recycling sacks to customers across the centre of London.
“The bike does as many deliveries as a van,” adds Bratley. “It operates in the
centre of London where traffic is very slow.
“The bike can make as many deliveries a day as an electric van, and it’s £3,000 for a bike compared to £30,000 for an electric van.”
First Mile, however, is just getting started, adds Bratley. “We don’t want to just replicate what’s out there. It’s not about putting more trucks on the road. It’s about using the existing infrastructure and using it smarter.
“Eventually, as we move to autonomous vehicles and driverless cars, there’ll be a lot of capacity on the roads. For example, we could use driverless cars to collect waste.
“I’m very optimistic for the future. It’s about realising that we need to change.”
thefirstmile.co.uk
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