Thirteen organisations in the East Midlands have been rewarded for their love of recycling – just in time for Valentine’s Day.
The award winners, seven in Nottinghamshire, five in Leicestershire and one in Derbyshire, have made significant efforts to increase the amount of waste they recycle, resulting in recognition from resource management and recycling company, Wastecycle, which has presented the companies with a Love Recycling Award.
The Nottinghamshire companies receiving awards were Nottingham Forest Football Club, Idelwells Shopping Centre, A-one+ Area 12, Charterspace, Kier, Robert Woodhead and Cherub Nurseries.
In Leicestershire, where Wastecycle also operates, the winners were: KD Trading, Interserve Site Services at Stanford Hall, East Coast Fittings, Noisily Festival and De Montfort University.
Derbyshire-based East Midlands Trains was recognised for introducing proactive awareness campaigns, especially around segregating used coffee cups, which has increased recycling rates by 26% by reducing the amount of waste spoiled by drinks leftovers.
Leicestershire Winners
Health and beauty product distributor KD Trading as seen recently on Dragon’s Den, introduced a ‘Right Waste, Right Place’ campaign significantly increasing recycling rates to win its Love Recycling Award.
East Coast Fittings manufacture handmade kitchens and bathrooms at its factory in Rearsby, where Robin Haynes has introduced waste segregation, sawdust skips and staff training to ensure plastic and card waste is put into the correct bin, improving recycling rates.
De Montfort University received its Love Recycling Award for its commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its activities and services.
The university has worked hard to increase the range of materials which can be recycled on campus and working with staff and students to change their behaviour by encouraging recycling.
DMU was also one of the first universities in the United Kingdom to take part in Green Impact, a behaviour change programme run by the National Union of Students. The project which was first introduced in 2009 encourages teams of staff volunteers to undertake environmental actions and activities with the support of students.
Nottingham Forest Football Club have taken great steps to improve their recycling, introducing more effective collection dates in line with their fixtures and requirements. 14 general waste bins are set to be reduced to four, with 10 being swapped for mixed recycling bins and staff have been trainined on the best way to handle waste.
“As well as the City Ground and Nigel Doughty Academy, the club’s offices are also aiming to be as green as the sweatshirt that former manager Brian Clough wore,” says Matthew Dunmore at Nottingham Forest Football Club. “Removing individual desk bins and replacing them with one large recycling bin and one small general waste bin in the centre spot of the office is increasing recycling rates and also helps the cleaning team who have fewer bins to empty.”
Paul Williamson of Kier‘s work on three Nottingham University sites, reducing waste and selling scrap metal to raise money for charity won him his Love Recycling Award.
Idlewells Shopping Centre in Sutton in Ashfield is home to over 45 retailers and is striving to win a Green Apple Award, the Oscars of the sustainability awards calendar. As part of these efforts, the centre has placed significant work into increasing their recycling performance. Stickers on collection bins clearly show what type of waste can be placed in them and new collection schedules have been introduced to ensure fluorescent lighting tubes, paint and waste electrical items are disposed of correctly.
Adele Wiseman, Safety and Health Executive Advisor at A-one+ Area 12, was also recognised for the initiatives she has introduced. In particular, she has created a site waste management plan; secured funding from the Highways Agency to investigate the feasibility of developing a gully waste treatment facility at the depot; and raising awareness of best practice, which has seen recycling rates hit 98%.
Construction company Robert Woodhead achieved a 98.5% recycling and recovery rate across its building sites in 2017 and also introduced environmentally-friendly initiatives such as harvesting rainwater, donating useful items including timber and old sinks, to local allotments rather than throwing them away. Furthermore, on renovation projects, original materials were resued whenever possible.
The final Nottinghamshire winner was Cherub Nurseries, which replaced paper learning records with electronic versions, reduucing paper usage by nearly half. Cherub also moved away from single-use plastic aprons when changing nappies and serving food. Introducing PVC and washable cotton tabards has stopped 250,000 disposable aprons being disposed of each year. Food composting has also been introduced at all of its nurseries and children are educated about recycling.
Wastecycle, which processes over 500,000 tonnes of waste at its Leicester and Nottingham facilities every year, of which, over 98% is recycled and recovered, asked its Account Managers to nominate companies and individuals who had embraced recycling; gone the extra mile to introduce systems and processes that reduced their company’s impact on the environment; or increased the amount of materials which were recycled through innovative methods. For this first time this year, companies were also encouraged to submit their own entries to Wastecycle for the awards.
Paul Clements, Wastecycle’s Commercial Director, said: “The Love Recycling Awards highlight and celebrate the fantastic results that companies across the East Midlands have achieved by reducing their waste levels, cutting the miles travelled by collection vehicles and increasing recycling productivity. These awards were open to all companies across the East Midlands, not just our customers, and the entries we received were fantastic! There’s a lot of great work being done by companies which want to reduce their impact on the environment.
“The Love Recycling Awards are our way of thanking the people who’ve driven innovation forward and have reduced the amount of waste that has been produced and increased the amount of waste that has been recycled or reused.”
Established in 1998, Wastecycle has grown rapidly and today is the leading resource management and recycling company in the East Midlands. The company uses the latest technologies to help over 3,000 businesses improve resource efficiency and reduce their operating costs by increasing recycling and decreasing carbon emission
