ReFood launches charity campaign to reduce Christmas waste

A charity campaign for the Christmas period to reduce business food waste and donate money to homeless charities has been launched by UK food recycler ReFood, which will be making a 50p donation for each new bin collection signed up to during November, December and January.

This is the second year that the company, which has a number of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants throughout the UK that turn waste food into renewable energy and bio-fertiliser, has run the promotion. Over last year’s winter months, ReFood provided waste collection services to a total of 2,566 new businesses, raising £4,000 for the chosen causes.

The charities involved in the initiative all work with homeless, vulnerable people, an issue that comes into particular focus around Christmas. Leeds-based St George’s Crypt, Manchester charity Barnabus, Liverpool-based charity The Whitechapel Centre, SHP in Dagenham, and Sheffield’s Sunday Centre, will all receive financial support from the campaign.

Philip Simpson, Commercial Director at ReFood, said: “This campaign highlights two important issues over the festive period: homelessness and wastefulness. We’d encourage all businesses involved in the food supply chain to think about their waste strategy, and recycle any waste food, and this campaign serves to highlight that.”

More information about ReFood is available at the company’s website.

Amey awarded Surrey’s waste collection contract

A joint waste collection contract in Surrey set to save Elmbridge, Mole Valley, Surrey Heath and Woking councils more than £2 million a year has been awarded to infrastructure support company Amey.

The new contract focuses on customer service and includes the flexibility to adapt to the latest innovations from the waste sector. It will last ten years, with the option to extend, and will have begin to be implemented in June 2017, with other Surrey councils having the opportunity to join as the contract progresses.

Covering all aspects of waste collection, including the opportunity to introduce a commercial waste service, the contract will also include street cleaning and associated activities. There will also be the opportunity to develop services, such as through optimising collection rounds crossing council boundaries, enhancing collection vehicles with in-cab safety technology, and the improvement of food waste, bulky waste, and electrical equipment collections.

Tim Pashen, Project Lead for Surrey Heath, commented on the new contract: “By working together, we’re able to deliver an improved service to our residents while making substantial savings. The four councils will now start joining their waste services together under an inter-authority agreement, so we can manage the contract as a single client and align our waste services.”

Andy Milner, Chief Executive of Amey, said: “We are committed to working closely with these councils to meet their sustainability and environmental objectives, while providing a first-rate service for local residents.”

More information about recycling in Surrey can be found on the Recycle for Surrey website.

Ecosurety appoints new operations director

Resource efficiency and compliance specialist ecosurety has appointed Paul Timmins to the role of Operations Director. Timmins has 13 years’ experience in director roles in the financial sector, working for almost a decade at DAS UK group, and holding senior positions in regulated industries including Britannic Money, BAA and FirstPlus Financial.

Timmins will oversee IT, procurement and quality management systems at the company. He will also join ecosurety’s board to help the company deliver smarter compliance solutions for its 1000-plus members via resource reduction, reuse and recycling.

Commenting on his new role, Timmins said: “I enjoy working with high-performing and motivated teams, and I am looking forward to helping develop ecosurety’s systems so that it can become the go-to compliance scheme for larger producers.”

James Piper, Managing Director at ecosurety, said: “ecosurety is doing all it can to exceed current standards of excellence, whether that is across our products or through our customer services. Paul’s heavyweight background as a director and operations expert will be of great assistance to us in 2017.”

More information about ecosurety can be found on the company’s website.