Among the recent projects for Waste King, a specialist collections, clearance and recycling company based in Hemel Hempstead, have been:

• Working for the private health services chain, Nuffield Health
• Clearing an area for the high street opticians, Specsavers, to enable that particular branch of the company to comply with fire, health and safety regulations and other legislation
• Completely clearing the recently closed Amersham & Wycombe College

“All of the college’s fixtures and fittings had to go – so, first, Waste King organised an open day for local charities to visit the college buildings and take what they wanted,” explained Andy Cattigan, Waste King’s operations director.

Waste King organised the open day in association with Jeoff Colls, the manager of Connect Dacorum, a partnership between the business, public and voluntary sectors that participates in creating a better quality of life for everyone living within the jurisdiction of Dacorum Borough Council and the surrounding area.  Connect Dacorum is a Community Action Dacorum project which provides information and expertise on community involvement opportunities for organisations of all sizes and supports its members in delivering their corporate social responsibility objectives.

“After the open day had provided plenty of opportunities for the college’s fixtures and fittings to be recycled – thus helping the environment by avoiding sending it to landfill – Waste King delivered a number of 38 cubic yard bins to the former college site,” Andy added. “We used these waste containers rather than lots – and lots – of skips because the bins can contain all types of waste, while there are legal restrictions on what can be put in skips. Moreover, the bins are ’neater’ and more secure than a skip – and, unlike with skips, customers only pay for the volume of waste materials we collect.

“Our operatives put the materials that were left into these bins and then took the bins away for processing,” continued Andy. “But, in accordance with Waste King policy, as they loaded the bins they ensured that they separated the materials, into ‘wood’, ‘metal’ and so on. Although it takes more time than just throwing anything and everything – in any order – into a bin, segregating the materials we collect enables us to recycle a very large proportion of the load. Again, this substantially reduces the amount sent to landfill and thus further reduces the whole project’s environmental impact.

“Waste King was able to recycle over 90 per cent of all the former college’s materials – which is in line with our pledge on any load we collect, however large or little it may be and regardless of whether it comes from a ‘business’ or ‘domestic’ customer,” he said.