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Making Waste Pay. Martin Stewart. Our attitude to recycling changed in the late 1990’s Only started measuring the cost of waste in 2001 - £12,893 Landfill was not expensive (certainly not its true cost) Lazy approach / busy enough thanks! Lack of education / awareness.
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Making Waste Pay Martin Stewart
Our attitude to recycling changed in the late 1990’s • Only started measuring the cost of waste in 2001 - £12,893 • Landfill was not expensive (certainly not its true cost) • Lazy approach / busy enough thanks! • Lack of education / awareness
Steadily we have: • Reduced the amount of waste • Reduced the cost of waste • Invested in the processes • Got it engrained in the culture of the business
Where to next: • Still have problem areas – Polystyrene, Plastic Pots. • Education - Greater sharing of solutions. • Need to keep pushing to find better ways. • Not easy when we are having to run a lean business. • We still have to find a way of dealing with on site concessions.
Some thoughts for the policy makers: • Create an environment to encourage innovation. • Don’t legislate to drive change. Just up the costs of inaction. • Scrap metal dealers were not legislated into existence! • Put the costs of the easy options up i.e Landfill. • Increase the fines for fly tipping and the chances of getting caught.
Some thoughts for the waste generators: • You MUST create a cost centre for waste in your accounts. • Tell everyone what waste costs. • Take steady steps to reduce it. 80/20 rule applies here. • Be prepared to invest. • Involve the marketing department, you might as well shout about it.
So how do Stewarts feel about where we are: • Still got problem areas. Polystyrene & Plastic Pots. • In 2001 waste was costing us £12,893 p.a. • Last year it was making us £3,000 p.a. So it’s paying. • But it has cost us over £100,000 to get here. • We can still do so much better. • We need to put more pressure on those that trade on our sites.