A local non profit-making company is making a major contribution to reducing the amount of waste currently landfilled in the Vale.
The Vale Housing Association, owns 5,000 properties in the District, will be recycling approximately 70% of the 600 skips of waste it produces a year. In the process it will significantly cut its annual waste bill. To help it achieve its target, the Association has just purchased its own skip lorry and mini-skips.
Facilities Manager John Northing explained the idea behind the scheme. We run a massive repair and maintenance operation which generates at least two skips of rubbish a day. When we investigated what was being thrown away we were stunned how much of it was recyclable. Landfilling waste is expensive and the tax on it keeps going up. Our disposal bill last year was a massive £65,000. Clearly there had to be a more productive way of dealing with it, so in future our waste will go to a recycling centre. They will remove any metal, wood, cardboard, soil and hardcore and crush it. Only 30% is non-recyclable and will still need to be landfilled.
The new initiative is part of our company’s very strong commitment to improving its environmental performance. In 1999 we became the first housing association in the country to be awarded the international environmental standard ISO14001. This is yet another idea where we’re saving money on our tenants’ behalf and improving the local environment.