Stakeholder briefing

Are you letting cash literally waste away? With the landfill tax currently standing at £40 a tonne and landfill gate fees typically adding another £20 a tonne, any business with sufficient volume should save money by sorting their waste for recycling.

The potential costs and savings will vary depending on the size of business and the type of waste, but a spokesperson for waste management company Veolia Environmental Services says: “The £8 annual landfill tax escalator, due to continue until 2013, will mean the economics of recycling will increasingly add up for smaller businesses which have less volume.”

Many kinds of business can benefit from sorting their waste.

Simons Construction, a £240 million turnover firm, found that it could potentially cut its annual costs by £4.4 million by reducing and segregating its waste through good practice site waste management planning which WRAP and Envirowise are supporting. Within that, it found that waste disposal costs could be cut by at least 37 per cent through segregation.

While segregating waste may not immediately seem viable for some small companies, treating waste as a potential resource could save money. Herb UK, a £3 million turnover haircare business, invested in a shredder which has enabled it to pack its products in its own waste cardboard. The machine will pay for itself in 13 months and then create additional savings of £800 a year.

For some companies, finding a partner which can use its waste to make new products is more viable. The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) brings such partners together and has so far saved £131 million for its 12,000 members.

As the capacity of the UK’s Materials Recycling Facilities (MRFs) has increased they are keen to ensure their facilities are running at full pelt and actively seeking corporate and industrial clients. Over time this is likely to reduce costs for businesses wanting to recycle waste materials such as paper, aluminium, plastic and glass. Biffa, for example, now collects glass for recycling from major pub chains across the UK.

National coverage means the service is now more cost effective for smaller companies. WRAP’s Mike Falconer Hall says there is further potential for the future: "There have been instances in the USA for MRFs to buy material. They see it as a manufacturing process where they are buying in the materials they need."

The viability of recycling has also improved as, after last year’s crash, the price of recycled materials have now bounced back to around their five-year averages. The price of coloured PET (polyethylene terephthalate), mixed HDPE (high-density polyethylene) and mixed polymer plastic bottles, for example, has risen from less than £50 a tonne at the end of last year to between £100 and £150 a tonne this summer.

Businesses that can find ways to cost effectively sort materials and prevent contamination can attract higher prices for their waste. Glass bottles sorted into different colours, for example, can be remade into new containers, while glass from co-mingled collections is worth about £10 a tonne less as it is difficult to separate and so largely used in aggregates. With costs at a premium, treating waste as a precious resource should be on every business’s agenda.

The UK’s DIY industry has signed a voluntary agreement to slash the amount of packaging and waste sent to landfill by half, under an initiative led by WRAP. Wickes, B&Q, Homebase, Focus, Henkel and Argos will work together in the Home Improvement Sector Commitment to achieve a 15 per cent packaging reduction and a 50 per cent cut in waste to landfill by the end of 2012 against a 2007 baseline. They have also pledged to help consumers to recycle more. The DIY industry agreement supports the Government’s UK Packaging Strategy, Making the Most of Packaging, which identifies voluntary agreements as a key route to delivering change.

45 retailers and leading brands have now signed up to the on-pack recycling labelling scheme developed by WRAP and the British Retail Consortium including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Kellogg's, Tesco, B&Q, Britvic and Boots.

The labelling scheme aims to provide a simple consistent, UK-wide recycling message on both retailer private label and manufacturers’ brand packaging to help consumers recycle more things, more often. Thousands of product lines are already sporting the labels in store and others will emerge in coming months. For further information, and to sign up to the scheme visit www.onpackrecyclinglabel.org.uk

With the average Briton consuming 3.3 tonnes of electrical waste in their lifetime, finding ways to recycle and reuse these products is vital.

A real step change is to make electrical products more sustainable through designs that increase product life and maximise the ability for repair. So, WRAP has just launched research to assess the life cycle impact of household electronic products from toasters to TVs which will identify where the biggest sustainability issues lie.

The study will examine the use of resources and climate impact of the processes behind creating each product, from raw materials extraction to usage and disposal. Expected to be completed in six months’ time, the study will help electricals manufacturers design more sustainable products.

WRAP is already working with recyclers to try and show how electrical products can be recycled. A project looking at how LCD screens, which contain mercury, can be safely reprocessed is due to complete in October. The project is intended to develop bulk scale recycling methods which can be rolled out commercially ahead of a significant rise in the number of flat screen TVs and laptops hitting the waste stream in the next few years.

Finding ways to reprocess non-bottle plastic packaging is becoming a priority for local authorities as householders question why this highly visible waste is not being recycled. Of the estimated 1 million tonnes of non-bottle plastic packaging thrown away by households every year, around 23,000 tonnes is currently collected for recycling but WRAP has been working hard to find ways to divert more from landfill.

This summer a WRAP study found that the potential cost for local authorities to add these ‘mixed plastics’ to recycling collections was £2 to £5 per household per year. Costs depend on the types of plastic packaging collected (rigids and/or films) and how it is collected and sorted.

Meanwhile, studies of MRFs already handling mixed plastics alongside paper, their largest materials stream, found that resulting contamination levels were low, making it a viable option for many more waste handlers.

WRAP is also working to develop outlets for these materials. In manufacturing trials led by recycling specialist Nextek, LINPAC found that rigid polypropylene packaging could be recycled into new items such as drainage pipes while manufacturing trials at CeDo demonstrated that recycled packaging film has the potential to be used to make new film products.

More than 190 construction industry organisations have signed up to the ‘Halving Waste to Landfill’ commitment, smashing targets ahead of the scheme’s first anniversary. The commitment has attracted support from throughout the supply chain including clients, designers, housebuilders, contractors, manufacturers and waste management contractors. More than 70 construction contractors have signed, including eight of the top 10 by turnover in the UK. Almost 50 clients are also on board including retailers, local authorities and transport companies.

An event to celebrate a year of the commitment is being held on 15 October at London’s Design Museum. Environment minister Dan Norris and former chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, Jonathan Porritt, will be examining the programme’s achievements and next steps.

Paper:
Around half of all the newspapers and magazines collected in the UK are recycled back into newsprint here. A new paper mill, Palm, will add 500,000 tonnes more recycling capacity in the UK this year. MRFs are able to use increasingly complex sorting machinery to increase the amount of material that can be recycled.

Cardboard:
Just over half the packaging and board collected in the UK is exported for recycling, mainly to China, for reprocessing.

Plastic:
A variety of different processes from optical sorting devices, which can pinpoint different polymers and colours, make recycling increasingly economically viable. HDPE and PET plastic bottles can be recycled in the UK back into food packaging and other plastic products. Although about 60 per cent of plastic bottles continue to be recycled abroad that proportion is rapidly reducing. The majority of non-bottle household plastics go into landfill here, but recent work from WRAP to develop the industry is leading to wider collection and recycling of these materials.

Glass:
More than 60 per cent of glass collected for reprocessing is recycled into new containers. Most of the rest goes into aggregates applications.

Construction waste:
Of the 120 million tonnes produced annually in the UK, some 60 per cent is recycled into aggregates or reused. After legislation changes earlier this year, plasterboard can no longer be legally put into mixed landfill and is now largely recycled, much of it into new plasterboard.

Aluminium cans:
Around 50,000 tonnes of aluminium with a market value in excess of £25 million is collected in the UK. Half of those cans collected in the UK are recycled here and the rest exported.

Steel cans:
Last year 420,000 tonnes of steel cans were recovered in the UK and more than half were recycled here, mainly by steel company Corus. The rest were exported for recycling overseas.

With the construction industry suffering one of its toughest trading periods in recent history, Bovis Lend Lease is well placed to explain the link between resource efficiency and tough economic reality.

The company is backing WRAP’s construction sector commitment: ‘Halving Waste to Landfill’ and has set itself an even tougher target of reducing waste to landfill by 70 per cent by 2010. In the 18 months since that commitment was made, Bovis Lend Lease has already reduced waste by 45 per cent and is on track to meet its deadline. It’s all part of a broader plan to make Bovis Lend Lease more sustainable which involves, for example, seeking out responsibly sourced materials and those with higher recycled content.

Nick Pollard, Chief Executive of Bovis who will be a panellist at WRAP’s Annual Conference on 4 November, says: "Bovis Lend Lease has huge long-term aspirations in terms of sustainability and part of that is a vision to be able to design and build, for ourselves and for others, buildings that are zero net carbon, zero net waste, zero net water, and provide long term sustainable social outcomes. To get there we have to re-engineer our operation and supply chain.”

Of course, Bovis’ commitments are partly driven by increasing legislation which demands, for example, that plasterboard be diverted from landfill and construction projects worth more than £300,000 have a formal sitewaste management plan. Pollard says that, beyond the legal requirements, clients increasingly expect construction firms to consider issues such as waste segregation and use of recycled materials. He adds: “We came at this first of all because it was the right thing to do in terms of our values, sustainability and vision. We have now found, post the turmoil of the financial crisis, that of course it is a good place to be for other reasons related to stout economics.”

On a recent £150 million project Bovis saved £2 million on materials and waste removal. That benefit was passed on to the client but Pollard says such savings should help Bovis win new business. He adds that working closely with clients and architects from the earliest design stage of a project is the best way to cut waste. For example, plasterboard wastage can be cut by ensuring the height of a corridor is equal to the height of the panels that are ordered.

Clever handling of logistics can also keep waste out of the system by preventing materials from being damaged on site. For example, a project to consolidate lorry loads of materials into packs suitable for each stage of the build adopted at the Central St Giles site off London’s Tottenham Court Road more than halved the amount of plasterboard wasted.

It sounds impressive, but monitoring the achievements of the waste reduction programme has been tricky. At its Pendle Vale School project in Lancashire, Bovis has been trialing WRAP's Net Waste methodology which measures the use of building materials made from recycled content and the reuse of materials, against the waste generated during a project. It resulted in a 30 per cent reduction in net waste at Pendle Vale and that wastage rate is now being used as the baseline to judge contractor tenders.

However, the variety of different approaches adopted by different waste contractors can make life difficult. Pollard says: “There is a lack of standardisation across the industry and we have been working with others calling for a standardising of environmental reporting”.

Gaining a more detailed breakdown of waste also helps Bovis identify where problems are and how they can be resolved. That will be key in helping the company reach its ambitious target.

Designing out waste is an increasingly important consideration for business. Nick Pollard is right to point out that the biggest wins come from considering where waste might occur right at the beginning of a project. It’s clear that the first of the three Rs of resource efficiency - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - is the most important because it will mean less cost all the way through the system. However, finding a way to reduce the resources your business uses can be difficult and that’s where some fresh thinking can help. That’s why WRAP plans to make preventing waste the focus of our work under the new single resource efficiency body which is currently being developed.

Our intention is to bring groups including Envirowise, Action Sustainability, the BREW Centre for Local Authorities, Construction Resources and Waste Platform (CRWP), the Centre for Remanufacturing & Reuse (CRR) and the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) under one roof. The plan will improve efficiency in the provision of advice under four main themes: resource minimisation and eco design; supporting resource efficiency for business; building markets for recycled and recovered resources including energy and finally reducing waste to landfill with a focus on household waste.

As Bovis’ experience shows, bringing together all the different players in a supply chain can be tough. Improving communication and co-operation between resource support services will help us find the right solutions to these problems in partnership with you.

Getting things right can bring handsome rewards as Nick will talk about at WRAP’s Annual Conference on 4 November. The Conference will focus on the business benefits of resource efficiency, challenges, barriers and solutions for action. Delegates will hear from Marc Bolland of Morrisons, David Palmer Jones of SITA UK, the Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP and Will Day of the SDC in a panel debate chaired by Today’s John Humphrys.

The benefits reaped from the construction industry’s ‘Halving Waste to Landfill’ commitment will also be discussed at next month’s construction industry event. There are now more than 190 organisations signed up to the WRAP-backed commitment and we expect some exciting news about the amount of waste saved by these companies on 15 October.

Creating sustainable products successfully begins with building a multi-functional project team to ensure the whole life cycle of a product is considered, from design through to consumption and disposal.

Marketing teams, brand and category managers, packaging technologists, designers, supply chain managers, buyers, manufacturers, packers and fillers can all help develop a strategy that meets the needs of customers, shareholders and the environment. One company who recently worked with WRAP on a product sustainability project has already seen a 20 per cent reduction in raw material usage, a 20 per cent reduction in waste sent to landfill and cost savings of 5 per cent. Whether you’re developing a new product or updating an existing one, making sure materials are used as efficiently as possible is central to the process.

Here are a few tips and ideas:

• Consider all the opportunities to use resources (materials, water and energy) more efficiently. Look at all stages of the supply chain including design, manufacturing, distribution, storage and consumer usage.
• Look for resource ‘hot spots’ in the product’s life cycle and act on these.
• Design for the reuse and repair of an item and consider how it can be recycled at the end of its life.
• Look for opportunities to reduce bulk by, for example, removing water or splitting deliveries later in the supply chain to help increase distribution efficiencies.
• Consider reusable or refillable packaging, which could cut distribution costs and reduce customer waste.
• Design and specify products and packaging with recycled content wherever appropriate.
• Consider primary, secondary and tertiary packaging together to deliver benefits that can be felt throughout the supply chain.
• Think about how a product and its packaging will be disposed of after use. Can the various materials be easily separated for recycling?
• Identify opportunities to reduce waste and meet the needs of different types of customer through appropriate pack/delivery sizes or resealable or divisible packaging.
• Use on-pack labeling to provide clear advice about best before dates, storage, freezing and recycling.
• Tell your customers about your efforts to be more sustainable and use recycled material.

Founded by Sir Peter Parker in 1975, the Business Commitment to the Environment (BCE) Environmental Leadership Awards scheme is one of the world’s longest running and most prestigious environmental award schemes.

Completely free to enter, the BCE Awards scheme provides you with the opportunity to get the public and peer recognition you deserve for your company’s environmental excellence.

If you have a product, process or management project that demonstrates environmental leadership, visit www.bceawards.org for further details and eligibility criteria. Entries close on 12 October 2009.  Nick Pollard, CEO of Bovis Lend Lease and winner of 2009’s top award says “We consider the BCE Awards as THE environmental award to win as it’s a clear benchmark of our performance across not just our industry but across the UK business community”.