We’ve all heard the old saying that where’s there’s muck there’s brass but its an expensive business dealing with rubbish and that brass is our council tax money being spent to tackle the problem!
It’s a startling fact that every hour of every day in the UK we generate enough waste to fill the Royal Albert Hall (that’s about 86,650 cu. m per hour).
Landfill is expensive and wasteful yet this is where much of our waste ends up.
Councils (under budget and recycling target pressure) are now turning their attention to apartment dwellers, its more complicated to recycle in apartment blocks but with support and ongoing education Clear Building Management believes it IS possible to improve the frankly awful recycling rates in apartment blocks.
When properly sorted, far from being a drain on finite resources the recycled materials can actually generate revenue for cash strapped local authorities. Food waste can become rich compost, paper, glass and plastics can be sold back and some countries power stations will buy bundled refuse derived fuel (RDF) to feed their power stations. This helps to offset the cost of collections and helps keep council tax down.
Of course it’s not just general household waste that needs to be addressed, often bulky waste sofas, washing machines, tv’s are just left dumped in communal bin stores – these would often be collected at no or minimal cost if arranged by the resident but it becomes a commercial chargeable collection when left to the managing agent to clear up. The cost of this is borne entirely by service charge payers.
Getting to grips with both issues saves service charge, council tax and the planet.
We train our caretakers to understand the specific local authority requirements, we work closely with local authorities to distribute recycling information and ensure the buildings have the correct split of bins and through our @home portal we promote “freecycling” passing on unwanted items to a good home when you no longer need them (and give details how to cost effectively dispose of them when this isn’t possible).
We also partner with local charities who are desperate for furniture and white goods either to sell and raise funds or to use with their own projects, and will often collect for free as they are so grateful for the donation.
Many managing agents see waste and recycling as someone else’s problem we want to be clear – honesty, integrity and value means value wherever it can be found and that means supporting councils in the drive to recycle, we pledge to set ourselves the challenge of meeting and exceeding the current local authority target recycling rate in blocks we manage.
But as you would expect from a managing agent with Honesty, Integrity and Value at its core, we will demonstrate our commitment by working towards ISO 14001 (The ISO 14000 family of standards provides practical tools for companies and organisations of all kinds looking to manage their environmental responsibilities.)
Clear Building Management are based in central Manchester and are ideally situated to offer our block management services to properties in Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham and the surrounding areas.
If your development is not currently managed by Clear Building Management but you are looking to change agent please contact us here
