Stansted Airport wins accolade for zero waste progress

Stansted Airport has been recognised for its recycling achievements with a 'Gold' accreditation by National Recycling Stars, a waste industry accreditation scheme.


With nearly 18 million passengers through the door each year, the airport generates significant volumes of waste, over 5,000 tonnes annually.

Stringent targets were set in 2010 to recycle 60% of total airport waste and send zero waste to landfill by 2015.

This 60% target has already been exceeded for the total amount of airport waste recycled and by the end of 2013 just 7% of waste was sent direct to landfill, putting the airport on track to achieve 0% by 2015.

Stansted Airport’s environment & utilities manager Kathy Morrissey said much of the success was down to the partnership approach taken by its cleaning contractor, waste disposal company and 190 companies and thousands of employees on-site.

“Our ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ strategy is the key driver of our waste management strategy and we enjoyed great success introducing relatively small initiatives that collectively impact our overall performance such as a food waste composting scheme and manually separating plastics from general waste collections,” she commented.

According to Olu Faturoti, scheme manager of National Recycling Stars, with its high footfall and multiple stakeholders, Stansted Airport faced several challenges in achieving its goals.

“Its investment in technologies along with a proactive approach to educating both staff and customers means Stansted Airport now diverts 93% of its waste from landfill – a huge achievement for a business working in such a diverse landscape,” he said.

Maxine Perella

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