29^th July 2008

Yorkshire Building Society chooses TEG to help its sustainability drive

Yorkshire Building Society enlisted the help of RAY (Recycling Action Yorkshire) to help identify the best methods of composting the food waste produced at its head office on-site restaurant.

The society had considered establishing its own composting facility to deal with food waste produced from serving hot meals, sandwiches and snacks for over 1,000 staff at the Rooley Lane site.  Instead, they decided to take advantage of a new food waste collection service introduced by composting specialists TEG Environmental.  TEG provides special bins dedicated solely to waste food which are collected on a pre-agreed basis and then taken to TEG's state of the art composting facility in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. There, the food waste is mixed with green waste before being fed into TEG's award-winning in-vessel silo composting cages.  After two or three weeks the compost is offloaded and then marketed for agricultural, horticultural and domestic uses.

For Yorkshire Building Society's busy restaurant, which has the facility to serve up to 1,200 covers a day, segregating the food waste has proved to be an easy process.  "We've had no problems with this at all," said Head Chef Lynn McGlinchey.  "All the team has been putting as much effort as possible into diverting the food waste to the composting bins instead of the general waste bins.  Special bins have been placed around the kitchen to make the process as easy as possible."

For Alison James, Property and Environmental Co-Ordinator, composting is part of an ongoing project by Yorkshire Building Society to adopt a more sustainable approach to business.  "The composting scheme is the latest in a series of measures we have introduced in our drive towards sustainability and we are very pleased with the results so far," she said.

Any company or organisation in Lancashire or Yorkshire that produces food waste is able to sign up for this specialist service.  For further information please call James Westcott at TEG Environmental on 01772 314100.

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