The Challenge
A large multi-site builder’s merchant in the South and Southeast of England were looking to meet certain long term sustainability plans. Part of the plan was to achieve zero waste to landfill for each of their sites within 3 years.
All waste, for both yard and offices were mixed and removed via large skips emptied weekly or fortnightly. No reporting was available for segregation of wastes, costs or end disposal point and recycling was not part of the ethos of the sites.
The Solution
Site Solutions has spent the last 18 months working closely with this Customer to assist with reaching this target.
In order to meet their requirements, it was important to have a full understanding of how the sites worked and so site visits/audits were carried out in person. The waste types mainly included; general waste, wood, hardcore, pallets, plasterboard, paper, plastics and cardboard.
Cost and space were also a factor for each of the sites and were a priority when discussing solutions. Whilst all the sites are similar, there are slight differences in size and waste generated.
Two trial sites were chosen, and waste segregation plans and education packages were put together and implemented over a period of three months.
For low density waste such as plastic, cardboard and paper, we arranged weekly wheeled bin collections for recycling. Both hardcore and clean wood waste is segregated into skips and collected on an ad hoc basis. These are both reused and/or recycled.
Pallets and plasterboard are bulked together at a central location with collections arranged on an ad hoc basis, with both waste types being fully recycled and diverted from landfill. Other residual wastes are taken as “general” waste and in most cases diverted from landfill to transfer or energy from waste facilities.
Over the past year, all sites have been rolled out and are now segregating all their waste and have reached an overall current result of 94% diverted from landfill. We intend to improve on this within the next 6 months.
Site Solutions provide an Account Manager and one point of contact for the customer, the Account Manager liaises with each site manager as well as the head buyer.
Visit/meetings and reporting are provided on a quarterly basis.
