Peldon Rose becomes Wimbledon’s Second Biggest Commercial Recycler in just 18 months

On Global Recycling Day, Carrie Lord, Peldon Rose Maintenance Coordinator, looks back at some of the recycling initiatives she has been implementing in our London office.

Last month, Peldon Rose was recognised by waste management company First Mile Recycling with a Silver Award for the progress we have made in our recycling programme. This is down to a fantastic drive from our entire team, who have embraced a range of initiatives that mean over 70% of our daily waste is now fully recyclable.

Back in May 2018, we were working out of a temporary office while we waited for our new home in Sterling House to be completed. At that time, our waste was separated into only two bins; one for general waste and one for mixed recycling. We noticed that the general waste bin was often overflowing, while the recycling bin took a long time to fill, so a few of us got together and decided we should come up with a plan to make our business more sustainable.

At Peldon Rose, we really value the input of our team, and we agreed they were the best people to ask about how we could improve our recycling habits. The response we got was brilliant. Suggestions included:

• Varied recycling in the kitchen areas, with separate bins for food waste, plastic, paper and glass.
• Clear information about which items are recyclable and which aren’t.
• A legible labelling system so that there’s no confusion over what goes where.

When we moved into our new home in May 2019, we worked with First Mile Recycling, who have helped us implement new recycling measures and get into the position where we now compost our food waste and recycle plastic, glass, paper, cardboard and even foamboard, while we have phased out single-use batteries, replacing them with rechargeable ones. On average, we recycle roughly 527 kilogrammes of waste and save 0.67 tonnes of CO2 every month. This makes us the second biggest commercial recycler in Wimbledon. But we aren’t stopping there. We’re continuing to improve our recycling efforts every day, with regular updates to our staff telling them how they can make themselves even more efficient recyclers. And this time next year we hope to turn that Silver Award into a Gold!