With National Share a Story month in May, we wanted to share our success story (so far) with you all…
Since our inception in 2002, RPS has pioneered packaging collections for reuse, primarily wooden pallets. This has helped our clients save millions of pounds whilst dramatically cutting their carbon footprint and environmental impact.
Our most recent successes include winning national awards, big business contract wins, completing team expansion plans and helping to save the environment, along with a lot of money!
Let’s take you back to September 2013 when we won our first national accolade, the Gold Award at the well-respected Let’s Recycle Zero Waste Awards.
We won this award because of our commitment to the way we handle waste. That year we diverted an incredible 650 tonnes of waste going to landfill, consisting of recycling 550 tonnes of wood waste and 60 tonnes of mixed cardboard, paper and plastic. The wood waste is one of our top success stories as the chipped wood is used for either animal bedding or biomass fuel.
We still use these methods today and strive towards zero waste on a daily basis.
We were honoured with the BOC Industrial Environmental Award at the NEPIC Awards in 2014. This was in recognition of our dedicated approach to reduce waste through sustainable methods. We won a £2,000 donation which we presented to Marwood Church of England Infant School, in Great Ayton, to be used for environmental and educational projects.
Like many businesses, our award wins demonstrate our commitment and have helped us win big contracts.
In 2013 we won a contract with a fortune 500 company, Cummins, to manage its packaging waste. This evolved to collecting used engine pallets and components to be inspected, repaired and returned to the USA for reuse. We’ve helped Cummins reduce their packaging spend and carbon emissions and we’re currently developing the reuse of pallets at the Darlington Engine Plant.
As well as this, we’re pleased to now be working with the Home Retail Group (HRG), which owns household names such as Homebase and Argos. We collect used pallets from the HRG UK distribution centres and re-distribute these back into the market for reuse. We have also implemented recycling solutions for other wood wastes to help reduce overall waste volumes and make measurable cost savings.
Not only do we operate nationally, we are proud that our services have been implemented internationally throughout Europe. This includes the collection of Huntsman Tioxide pallets and big bags from across Europe, and once inspected and repaired they are returned to the European manufacturing sites for reuse. This provides both environmental and economic benefits to the business in comparison to buying new replacement packaging.
Our marketing and communications manager, Thomas Hudson commented: “We’re on the precipice of change in the UK with the General Election almost upon us. UK voters could have a positive and dramatic effect on our business to drive reuse above recycling and energy recovery. RPS will ensure that we are at the forefront to help achieve targets but fundamentally help our clients save time, money and the environment by encouraging packaging reuse.”
Through natural expansion and working with our clients, we’re pleased to have welcomed 7 new team members to the RPS family over the past 12 months. Through a local employment scheme we will ensure these roles are kept for a minimum of 2 years, helping to keep people in employment in the region. We wish all of our new staff an enjoyable experience with us.
Through these great achievements, we’ve been able to improve the economy as well as the environment which is something we’re really proud of.
We wonder what else we’ll have achieved by next National Share a Story Month…
