James Dawson

Zero Landfill for James Dawson

Zero Landfill for James Dawson

Minimisation of waste is an important target for all businesses and one that James Dawson takes extremely seriously.

As an ISO14001 company, James Dawson is committed to reducing the environmental impact from the businesses operations as much as possible.

Historically at the UK site, all materials that could be recycled such as glass, card and metals were all separated and collected by various recycling companies. However, there was a vast amount of material, particularly composite silicone waste from manufacturing operations, that was not able to be recycled and had to be sent to landfill.

In an effort to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, our H&S department set out to find an alternative solution. After conducting research and contacting different companies, a decision was made to utilise a local recycling company that promised to eliminate all waste going to landfill by processing all waste into SRF (solid recovered fuel).

Mid-UK Recycling are a leading waste management company with a proven record of working with businesses and local authorities to achieve a genuine 100% landfill diversion.

All of the general waste produced across the two sites that isn’t able to be recycled is processed into SRF. The general waste is firstly shredded through a low speed shredder, then shredded again through a high speed shredder to sub 30mm, and passes over magnets to extract any metals.

The shredded material is delivered to cement kilns in the UK and Europe, where it is used as a direct substitute for coal.

There are several benefits to both the business and the environment including:

  • Less reliance on finite fossil fuels that have a higher unit cost
  • Reduced carbon footprint and lower greenhouse gas emissions
  • A constant supply of high-quality fuel at a relatively stable price
  • Reduced need for “dirty” fuels like coal

Sustainability is important to both myself and James Dawson and our parent company Michelin. Ensuring all the businesses waste is disposed of in the most sustainable way as possible is one of the first steps we’re taking to improving our sustainability. Our next steps as a business include plans to reduce and offset our carbon footprint by looking at investments such as solar panels, VSD air compressors, zone valve controls for steam circuits. Also we are also looking into  installing a new Automated Monitoring & Targeting (aM&T) systems. AM&T forms the backbone of any successful energy management programme and it is imperative that a suitable system is installed in order to track energy improvements through the other report recommendations.