Waste creation is an inevitable part of day-to-day life within any care home. Consequently, so is waste management. But do you ever stop to think about where this waste goes when it leaves your premises and the impact it could be making on the planet?
Most organisations now do their best to recycle and divert waste from landfill – in fact, it’s becoming so widespread it is fast becoming a social norm. But with care home waste, we’re not just talking about items which can be more easily segregated and recycled such as cardboard and plastic.
Unfortunately, hygiene waste is typically landfilled by the industry and cannot be recycled which often means it is overlooked when it comes to sustainable waste strategies. Therefore, despite the very best of intentions, a significant amount of care home waste ends up in landfill creating a burden on our natural environment and taking hundreds of years to decompose. And with estimates that there is an average of less than seven years of landfill remaining, it isn’t just an environmental issue, it’s a capacity issue too.
As an organisation which strives to do the right thing, this didn’t sit right with us at phs which is why we’ve worked hard to find a different way. In response, we created the phs LifeCycle strategy which sees us divert customer waste from landfill and transform it into energy to power homes, hospitals and even schools. We are the first national hygiene services provider to partner with energy-from-waste (EfW) specialists such as Viridor to divert customer waste into power generation on scale of this size.
phs collects around 65,000 tonnes of hygiene waste every year from customers which would take up to 500 years to decompose in landfill. Instead, we are working towards an ambitious target to see 95% of collected waste diverted from landfill and used to create safe, clean energy. Not only is this the right thing for us at phs, it’s the right thing for our customers too as they aspire to become more sustainable and reduce their impact upon the environment.
The good news is that hygiene waste no longer has to fall off the radar when it comes to sustainable waste strategies. By creating a new journey for hygiene waste, phs LifeCycle has given care homes the power – and the choice – to make a change and make a difference to our planet.
For more information about phs LifeCycle and diverting waste from landfill, visit the phs website. You can also follow @phsGroup on Twitter and phs Group on LinkedIn
– ENDS –
For more information, contact:
Laura Windeatt
PR consultant for phs Group
N.B. The information contained in this entry is provided by the above supplier, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher
