News
Monday 14 May 2007
LEEP Recycling and The City of Edinburgh Council Launch City Centre Business Recycling Collections
LEEP Recycling has joined forces with the City of Edinburgh Council to launch a new recycling service for the Edinburgh business community.
The service focuses on Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) located in and around Edinburgh city centre. This new collection service, which will be promoted over the next five months, aims to recruit 125 new SMEs from the area.
LEEP Recycling, which is part of the sustainable development charity Changeworks, will offer the Council’s existing trade waste customers an additional recycling service. LEEP Recycling will collect paper and cardboard from local businesses on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, tailoring the service to meet the customers’ needs. In addition cans and plastic bottles can also be collected, if required.
The service offers an easy, cost effective and convenient solution to business recycling and follows last year’s award winning ‘Our Boxes Mean Business’ campaign, which resulted in 245 Edinburgh-based SMEs signing up to the service - diverting an estimated 396 tonnes of waste from landfill per year.
The trial is funded by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) and is supported by Waste Aware Business, a national campaign that aims to raise awareness of business waste issues and provide information about landfill alternatives. SMEs participating in the service can download posters and other useful resources from the Waste Aware Business website: www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk
Scotland’s businesses currently produce around nine million tonnes of waste every year. This compares to three million tonnes of household waste. By participating in this new scheme, local businesses can reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites and make significant cost savings as landfill tax continues to rise.
“LEEP Recycling is delighted to be working in partnership on this project with the City of Edinburgh Council, which is fully behind us in our efforts to get as many businesses as possible in the Edinburgh area recycling at work,” said Louise Birnie, Sales Manager – LEEP Recycling. “Our service is easy, cost effective and convenient, and with so many people now recycling at home, separating materials for collection is second nature.”
Fiona Whyte of Waste Aware Business added: “We are delighted to see LEEP Recycling providing SMEs in the centre of Edinburgh with another opportunity to recycle. LEEP Recycling is a well-established organisation that has offered a flexible business recycling service for SMEs in Edinburgh for over five years and this new service will help to develop this further.”
For more information or to arrange a collection, please contact LEEP Recycling on: 0131 538 5381 or email: leeprecycling@changeworks.org.uk or visit: www.changeworks.org.uk
Issued on behalf of Waste Aware Scotland by The Big Partnership
For further details contact:
Barry McPherson – The Big Partnership
T: 0131 558 3111
E: barry@bigpartnership.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
1. An Edinburgh-based social enterprise, LEEP Recycling delivers a range of recycling services to around 1,300 businesses in the city and across the Lothians. By making recycling at work easy, cost effective and convenient, we are committed to helping to protect the environment. By overcoming the barriers to participation in recycling, we reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. By reinvesting our profits, we continue to improve and expand our services. LEEP Recycling is a Changeworks company.
2. Changeworks exists to improve quality of life and to protect the environment. We work with passion, integrity and in collaboration to develop and deliver innovative projects and businesses in energy, waste prevention and transport that inspire and empower people and communities to make a difference.
3. CHANGEWORKS Resources for Life Ltd. is a company registered as a charity in Scotland and limited by guarantee. Charity No. SC015144. Company No. SC103904. Registered Office: 36 Newhaven Road, Edinburgh EH6 5PY. VAT Reg. No. 703521966.
4. Waste Aware Business is a national campaign run by the Scottish Waste Awareness Group (SWAG). It aims to raise awareness of how businesses can deal with their waste more sustainably. SWAG was established in 2000 to change public attitudes and behaviour towards domestic waste in Scotland. For more information visit www.wasteawarescotland.org.uk
5. WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
More information on all of WRAP’s programmes can be found at: www.wrap.org.uk or by contacting: Sarah Dunn, Senior Press Officer, WRAP Office: 01295 819 695 Email: sarah.dunn@wrap.org.uk
