East Midlands Airport

Key Project / Contract Name:        

EMA Facilities Contract

Description:                           

On-site Facility Management, collection and recycling of waste.

Location/s:                                       

East Midlands Airport – Waste Compound

Awards:

Green Apple Silver Award

Chartered Institute of Wastes Management 'Sustainable FM' nominee

Statistics:

Original Recycling rate : 38%

Recycling rate as of 1/1/2012: 89%

Improvement: +51%

Overview:

With a large freight operation and supporting services such as catering, baggage handling, security, retail and administration, the airport’s operations generate in excess of over 800 tonnes of waste a year.  The waste compound is also used by the local business community who are tenants at EMA.

Rising passenger numbers and disposal costs impacted by the landfill tax escalator made it clear that EMA needed a more sustainable approach to their waste management to ensure their environmental performance was maintained.

Wastecycle were given the opportunity to review and present to EMA, demonstrating how our philosophy on waste management could not only improve their environmental performance but would also be cost effective and sustainable. 

Wastecycle illustrated that whilst segregation of waste types was an important factor, without full time manning of the site to manage the segregation systems, this method would be limited in its success. Full waste and HSE audits were undertaken, establishing that the current recycling rate was averaging 38%, with over 61% of all waste going to landfill, equating to approximately 45 tonnes a month.  Segregation of card, paper, wood, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and scrap metal was in place.  The site was not manned and segregation was limited, containers were not utilised effectively with a relatively large number of collections.  

Consultation:

The consultation process  involved a key account manager working closely with EMA’s Director of Sustainability. Wastecycle proposed a 3 month trial in which we would manage their waste compound to demonstrate the increased segregation performance we could deliver in addition to the cost and environmental savings offered by our collection and recycling service. The trial was successful and became fully implemented thereafter on a full-time basis 7 days per week. 

Improvements made: 

•     Improved segregation techniques have been employed,
•     Larger containers have been implemented to reduce transport costs
•     A greater diversity of containers segregating more waste types
•     On site management to direct users to segregation containers in addition to on site manual sorting processes. 

Future plans:

Wastecycle have given a presentation to EMA tenants to help raise awareness of the benefits of the compound and of improved performance at the point of generation.  The potential is to engage with the 120 airport businesses to enable shared utilisation of the site, localising their waste collection service with clear commercial benefits for both the tenants and the airport.

Although the operation of on-site waste management centres is not a new one and has been used in local authority sites across the country, the commercial sector has not adopted this approach.  Wastecycle is proud of its achievements at EMA and believes they clearly demonstrate that by transferring the philosophies and practices incumbent at our own site, we have shown that good waste management practice and close collaborative working is a winning formula for commercial enterprises, the community and the environment.  

To find out more about the services that we provide to East Midlands Airport please click here.