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Recycling trials show location is no barrier for SMEs

A series of recycling collection feasibility and demonstration trials for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) throughout the country have clearly shown that businesses can recycle effectively, regardless of their size, location or specific requirements.

Six-month schemes operated by First Mile in London and Mid Devon Community Recycling (MDCR) in Exeter which ran from January to June 2007 were amongst 13 feasibility trials supported by WRAP’s (Waste & Resources Action Programme) SME Recycling Programme. The Programme was created to explore effective ways to provide recycling services to SMEs and to develop appropriate, cost-effective and convenient recycling services.

As a result of the of the feasibility trials, Bryson Recycling of Belfast, Stockport Waste Management and North East Recycling Ltd were among a further 14 companies to take part in demonstration trials from March to August 2007.

Breaking down the barriers

Whether in a large city such as London or a more rural area like Devon, smaller businesses need services which are tailor made for their needs, including being easy to join and set up within their organisation, regular collections to minimise the amount of storage space needed and costing less or no more than general rubbish collection schemes.

Many of the SMEs which took advantage of the services provided during the feasibility and demonstration trials commented to the trial partners that they were surprised at how easy and cost effective it was for them to recycle – many were under the impression that recycling would be costly, time consuming and inconvenient which were real barriers stopping them from looking into recycling their waste. In many cases, recycling can actually be more cost effective than general waste disposal services they may have been using previously.

These trials have shown that SMEs need an appropriate infrastructure in place which meets their specific requirements in order to facilitate recycling. The numbers of SMEs joining each scheme has proven that they are willing to recycle and are keen to reduce their impact on the environment and the amount of waste they are sending to landfill.

First Mile
The aim of the trial delivered by First Mile was to test the feasibility of offering SMEs a daily mixed-material recycling service for cardboard, paper, plastic bottles, container glass, and steel and aluminium cans, using pre-paid 116 litre company branded sacks to collect recyclables.

The service proved to be ideal for small businesses in the capital that wanted to recycle, but found membership fees, long term contracts and minimum collections too complicated. The daily collection service also solved the problem of having to store materials for collection over a long period of time, which SMES found to be inconvenient or difficult due to a lack of storage space at their premises.

Dr Bruce Bratley, Chief Executive of First Mile, said: “SMEs cover a vast range of businesses, which have many different requirements from a recycling collection service.

“We knew we could deliver a more appropriate service, one that offered daily collections to minimise the amount of storage space needed, had no fixed contracts which made it easy to use, and cost the same or less than general rubbish collection, but we needed to learn more about how to recruit SMEs to this type of service.

“Working with WRAP to deliver the trial has allowed us to test methods for recruiting businesses to the service, including the recruitment process and the best use of sales techniques and support materials.”

First Mile found that an integrated approach to sales and marketing was most successful, with telesales and web-based advertising being best for initial lead generation, but personal contact was also needed to get SMEs to join the scheme and start recycling at work.
Two hundred and thirty SMEs signed up to the service, collecting 113 tonnes of recyclables in six months, which would otherwise have been sent to landfill.
One of the lessons learnt during the trial was that very small businesses were attracted to the service - 61 per cent of those recruited employed less than ten people - but a lot of customers were needed to make a daily recycling service financially viable for First Mile to operate.
Thirty-five per cent of SMEs joining the scheme had between ten and 50 employees and a further four per cent employed between 50 and 250 staff. Three-quarters (76 per cent) of SMEs recruited were office based, 22 per cent were retailers and two per cent were businesses in the catering trade. Ninety-nine per cent of businesses recruited intended to continue to recycle with First Mile after the end of the trial.
Over half of SMEs (56 per cent) chose to have daily collections, 25 per cent had collections two to four times a week and 19 per cent had a weekly collection. Collections were made Monday to Friday by First Mile’s own vehicles.
To use the service, customers filled their sacks with materials for recycling and left full sacks outside their premises at a specified time. The sacks were collected from the kerbside, or in some instances a waste storage area, car park or other location.
Materials collected
Throughout the trial, First Mile was collecting an average of 200kg per customer per month, which worked out at 9kg per day from each customer. During the course of the year, this would equate to almost 2 and a half tonnes of waste diverted from landfill.
Sacks collected from the kerbside are very carefully controlled in central London, and Westminster Council has a specified waste collection time for all waste and recycling collectors to keep ‘bags off the street’. Add to this the congestion in central London, CCTV and wardens enforcing restrictions, and recycling collections can become difficult to operate effectively.
As a result of this, one of the issues initially faced by the central London scheme was getting customers to understand that their sacks had to be left on the pavement at a specific time. This was particularly the case where customers had not used a pre-paid sack system before. These issues generally arose at the start of collections and were quickly resolved.
The Law Offices of Richard S Goldstein, a United States immigration law firm based in Mayfair W1, has three employees. It had wanted to recycle for some time but had previously found the costs and minimum weight restrictions for collections prohibitive. The firm joined the First Mile collection scheme around seven months ago.
Daniel Parisi, the Firm’s Managing Associate, said: “The First Mile service is a cost effective and convenient way for us to recycle. We fill one recycling sack a day, mostly with paper and plastic bottles, which First Mile collects each evening
“The service works very well for us and now we’ve started recycling it’s something we plan to continue to do. Previously our recyclables were going to landfill.”
Dr Bruce Bratley, added: “Lots of small businesses like The Law Offices of Richard S Goldstein want to recycle but often find it difficult to access appropriate recycling schemes.
“We’re continuing to recruit several customers a day and we aim to get every SME in the capital recycling by 2010!”
Mid Devon Community Recycling (MDCR)
MDCR is a not-for-profit community company collecting paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and cans from SMEs for recycling.

MDCR is well known in Mid Devon for the kerbside collection service offered to domestic properties. Collecting from businesses was a new venture for the organisation, which proved very popular from the start and MDCR’s aim was to assess the feasibility of offering SMEs a weekly pay-as-you-go collection service.

Ken Orchard, Managing Director, MDCR, said: “Through working with WRAP on the trial, we were able to get the scheme started and ensure we were creating a professional service.

“One of the first things we did was to employ a sales representative, which meant we could get the message out about our recycling service to more local businesses more effectively.”

Two hundred local businesses signed up to the scheme, collecting 86 tonnes of waste for recycling and diverting it from landfill – the equivalent in weight of over 10 double decker buses.

MDCR, like First Mile, recruited a large number of very small businesses with two-thirds (66 per cent) of SMEs employing less than ten people.

Ken Orchard, said: “Mid Devon Community Recycling covers quite a wide area. It was therefore essential that we had well planned routes so we were able to minimise the transportation of recyclables and maximise the amount of materials collected from businesses in each town.

“Providing a weekly service meant that SMEs, who are often short of space, did not have to store recyclables for long periods of time.”

MDCR provided SMEs with branded plastic recycling sacks for paper, cans, plastic bottles and plastic film. Glass was collected in 55-litre plastic containers and cardboard collected flat packed, bound with MDCR branded adhesive tape.

The prices included the cost of the collection, with no contract or annual fee payable.

Materials collected
During the trial, SMEs collected an average of 74kg per weekly collection, equating to 256kg of recyclables per month or over 3 tonnes per customer per year.

Ken Orchard added: “The rate at which businesses signed up to the service massively exceeded our expectations. It soon became obvious that SMEs wanted to recycle but the amounts they collected for recycling may not have made it commercially viable for larger operators to provide such a service.”

One of the first businesses to join the MDCR scheme was The Old Well Garden Centre in Uffculme, Devon, which employs 16 people and recycles it’s cardboard, paper and plastic film. During the trial it collected just over three tonnes of waste for recycling.

Robert Lamyman, Director of The Old Well Garden Centre, said: “This new scheme was very easy to implement and our staff were really enthusiastic about it.

“MDCR collected our recyclables every Wednesday, which helped to minimise the amount of space we needed for storage.

“Before signing up to the service, our waste went to landfill and it’s amazing to see just how much we’ve recycled in a few months. It’s something that now we’ve started we definitely want to continue to do in the future.”

Following the success of the trial in Mid Devon, the service has now been extended to SMEs in East Devon.
Bryson Recycling
Over 150 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Belfast are now recycling their business waste and helping their local environment, with the aid of Belfast recycling company Bryson Recycling.

During a six month demonstration trial supported by WRAP, Bryson signed up 90 businesses in the Belfast, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey and Ballymena areas to its multi-material collection service.

The success of the trial meant that Bryson is continuing to offer the service to SMEs, with a further 76 businesses signing up to recycle their waste since the trial ended in August 2007. Fiona Perry, Development Officer at Bryson Recycling, says: “Because SMEs all have such different requirements from a recycling collection service, it was really important to us to be able to offer a completely flexible service. Our multi-material collection service allows SMEs to recycle the waste they produce and arrange collections to suit the individual needs of their business, be it monthly, fortnightly, weekly or simply on request.”

Materials collected
During the demonstration trial, more than 36 tonnes of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles and cans were recycled – waste which would previously have been sent straight to landfill.

Belfast-based financial advisers, Johnston Campbell, were one of the first businesses to sign up to the recycling service provided by Bryson Recycling. Until recently, the business had no clear recycling policy and its thirty staff threw all general waste into one bin.

“A company collected our confidential waste paper but that was all,” recalls Angela McLaughlin, Marketing and Operations Administrator. “Everything else just went straight to landfill. The only real reason we weren’t recycling was simply because we hadn’t looked into it.”

Following encouragement from the Company Director, Angela discovered that Bryson Recycling could help by collecting its waste paper, plastic bottles and cardboard on demand, also eliminating the problem of storing recyclable materials. “The service has worked really well for us - Bryson Recycling will collect whenever we ask in return for a small fixed fee and they provide the bins too.”

Angela and her colleagues have all become keen advocates of the service provided by Bryson Recycling. “In our experience, recycling at work really couldn’t be easier and it feels good to know we’re doing all we can to reduce our waste,” says Angela. “We’ll definitely be recommending the service to other small businesses in the area.”

The positive feedback from Johnston Campbell has been typical of all the businesses which have used the service to date. “The feedback we’ve had from the businesses using our service is that they’re really keen to recycle and communicate the benefits to other Belfast companies. When we signed up Belfast City Centre Management to use the service they even offered to pass on a leaflet about our services to over 600 local businesses, which really raised awareness in the area,” says Fiona.

“We believe that the service has made a real difference to local companies, as every SME which signed up during the WRAP trial has chosen to continue using the service and with a further 76 businesses signing up since the end of the trial, we’re really getting through to local companies about the benefits of recycling.”

Following the success of the programme, Bryson Recycling has since expanded its service to other areas, including Lisburn and Castlereagh.
Stockport Waste Management
Almost 100 of Stockport and Macclesfield’s SMEs in the hospitality sector have been recycling their mixed glass waste as a direct result of Stockport Waste Management’s participation in WRAP’s demonstration trial.

Carl Bennett, Managing Director of SWM Waste Services, says: “The aim of the service was to target businesses in Stockport and Macclesfield’s hospitality sector to see how simple and cost effective it is to recycle and reduce the amount of glass waste being sent to landfill.”

Materials collected
During the six month demonstration trial, 92 hospitality SMEs took advantage of the flexible service offered by Stockport Waste Management. Together, they prevented over 170 tonnes of mixed glass waste from being sent to landfill – the equivalent of more than half a million bottles in total.

Customers were supplied with a range of recycling bins for their waste glass, which were collected on a weekly basis to maximise the amounts collected and to prevent SMEs, who are usually short of space, from having to store recyclables.

One of the first businesses to sign up to the service was The Travelling Gourmet, a mobile catering company that supplies food and drink to entertainment venues. The company brought back mixed colour glass bottles to its premises for recycling, saving around 12 tonnes a year, or over 44,000 bottles, from going to landfill.

Richard Morris, owner of The Travelling Gourmet, said: “The service has been fantastic. It’s saved us time, cost us less and made life much easier.

“We’ve simply been placing all our mixed colour glass bottles in the bin provided by SWM, which they then collected from our premises.”

Carl Bennett, Managing Director at Stockport Waste Management, says: ““Glass bottle waste is one of the largest waste streams for businesses in the hospitality sector and we found that a surprising number of small businesses were still sending their glass bottles to landfill, despite the fact that they are so easily recycled.

“By offering a free waste management review to SMEs we are hoping to educate businesses in the Stockport and Macclesfield areas, helping them to realise just how easy and cost effective recycling can be.

“Offering the service also brought benefits for Stockport Waste Management as a business too – by diverting mixed glass bottles from our existing trade waste stream we were also able to reduce our costs while making a positive impact on the local environment.”
North East Recycling Ltd
North East Recycling Ltd proved that local businesses were keen to recycle and improve their local environment, with over 205 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the North East taking advantage of its flexible, tailored multi material collection service.

Materials collected
Together North East Recycling Ltd and the 205 SMEs they worked with during the trial were able to recycle over 10 tonnes of paper and cardboard which would previously have been sent straight to landfill.

Pam Jose, Managing Director at North East Recycling Ltd, says: “Smashing our sign up target was a real achievement and there were many more successes throughout the trial.

“A great example was CNC Property Management in Newcastle, a commercial lettings agent which signed up to the service and then went on to sign up every one of its tenants in Milburn House, a Newcastle city centre office block, to the scheme too. Cases like these prove that we’re really getting through to local businesses about the benefits of recycling.

“Newcastle and the North East have had a poor reputation for recycling in the past and we are very keen to try and change this perception and promote the region as a ‘green’ place to do business. With over 200 SMEs signing up to start recycling during the trial and continuing to use the service now, we feel like we’ve been able to make real progress towards that goal.”

Good practice for service providers

WRAP have recently published a ‘Good Practice Guide’ based on the learnings from the first series of feasibility trials carried out in 2006 (available for download free of charge at www.wrap.org.uk/smegoodpractice) containing practical advice and information on how best to develop and provide recycling services for SMEs.

The guide covers all the major elements of developing and providing a service, focusing in particular on the key areas of sales and marketing, operational practice and financial issues. Packed full of useful information for existing service providers, the guide explains how to review their operations, identify improvements and plan their development and expansion in areas such as covering new recyclable material streams, targeting new geographical areas or new types of customers.

For organisations looking to establish an entirely new recycling service, the guide also contains all the information needed to plan the main elements of service development and operation, and assist them with designing a service that will be economically sustainable.