Thursday 24th October 2013
We’re back and haven’t fallen off the face of the internet; we’ve just been busy planning an event. Last Wednesday (16th October) we held an open day for our clients to officially celebrate the opening of our new yard. The day began with speeches from our Operations Director, Lindsey Hall and Local Mayor Tony Fish. We were also presented with a grant from the Low Carbon Trust by Sebastian Coombs, for the installation of environmentally friendly lighting across the yard.
The new facility includes a custom built MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) which enables us to recover 200 tonnes of paper per week. Paper is fed through the MRF and sorted into varying grades before being baled and collected ready to be recycled. In 2012, we diverted 15,834 tonnes of waste from landfill. That’s the equivalent of 15,000 Male Blue Whales, 26 WW2 tanks and 13,600 bricks. We have also invested in a new, state-of-the-art shredding facility. The facility is capable of shredding 5.25 tonnes per hour and is approved by both the BSIA and NAID. The final part of the yard to be completed is an IT processing unit which enables us to process even more IT equipment. This particular part of the yard was made possible due to funding from WRAP.
The opening speeches were followed by a series of tours around the facility before heading back into the canteen for tea and Paper Round cupcakes. We had some fantastic feedback from the day and could not be more pleased with how smoothly things ran.
So why are we so proud of our new facility? Well, aside from the fact that it was the single biggest investment Paper Round have ever made, just 25 years ago we were a Friends of the Earth project collecting paper from a few green-thinking offices. Today we serve over 5,000 London businesses, providing them with a complete waste management solution spanning the full spectrum of services from food recycling, to IT and security shredding. Our new yard marks the next step in the Paper Round story and demonstrates our commitment to helping London businesses to become as green as can be.
For more pictures from the day check out our Facebook page: http://ow.ly/q8HSV