Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Mitie Waste Management wins five Green Apple awards
Mitie Waste Management has won five Green Apple Awards - a gold, two silver and two bronze - for environmental best practice, working with clients at Network Rail, Parkdean Resorts, Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons and JLL. Its success highlights its expertise as well as the commitment of its people to go beyond client specification and deliver excellence to set a new bar for best practice.
The Green Apple Awards began in 1994 and are established as the country's major recognition for environmental endeavour among companies, councils, communities and countries. Competition is tough, with more than 500 other nominations in the Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice.
The winning entries:
Gold: Working with JLL at its Maggs House site, the team changed the number of bins to make the depositing of waste by tenants easier, whilst educating them around recycling, segregation and the wider waste management process.
Silver: Raymond Blanc's Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons (pictured) wanted to ensure it was leading the way in waste management, diverting as much as possible from landfill and exploring ways waste could be given a new purpose, from food waste to candles or soap. Mitie's team set up a learning and development programme encouraging a change of behaviours so that as much waste as possible could be segregated as it was disposed of. A year on, and the boutique hotel and restaurant no longer sends any waste to landfill.
Silver: The team installed an anaerobic food digester at Network Rail's head office in Milton Keynes to deal with the 120 tonnes of food waste every year. Food scrapings are now broken down into valuable biomass in about 12 hours and waste disposal has decreased to 24 tonnes per year: a reduction of 80%.
Bronze: At Parkdean Resorts, the overall recycling rate was just 9%. Mitie set about introducing and increasing recycling services on sites, educating staff and producing bespoke recycling signs across Parkdean's 72 holiday parks. In the first eight months, the volume of recycling has increased each month with the largest site in South Wales achieving a recycling rate over 60% with further initiatives also being introduced.
Bronze: At Four Seasons Shopping Centre in Mansfield, JLL wanted retailers to take responsibility for their waste, but again, education was key as well as offering better facilities. Mitie's team worked with both the client and the retailers to increase the recycling rate by 17.3% which also saved of over £5,000.
"It's superb for our work to be recognised like this as these awards are a real benchmark for environment best practice and we are honoured to represent the UK at the Green World Awards 2019," said Michael Taylor, managing director, Mitie Waste Management.
"Recycling and sustainability is all about common sense, not rocket science. Simply by helping our clients educate their end users, we can all contribute to a greener planet."
Founded in 1987, Mitie is one of the UK's leading facilities management and professional services companies. It offers a range of specialist services including security, engineering services, catering, cleaning landscaping, energy and property consultancy, and custody support services.
Mitie employs 49,000 people across the country, looking after a large, diverse, blue-chip customer base, from banks and retailers, to hospitals, schools and government offices. It takes care of its customers' people and buildings, by delivering the basics brilliantly and by deploying advanced technology. It is pioneering the Connected Workspace, using smart analytics to provide valuable insight and deliver efficiencies to create outstanding work environments for customers.
22nd November 2018