Tagging along with Hadleigh HWRC to the Awards for Excellence in Recycling Waste Management

The team from Hadeighs HWRC, FCC Environment & Suffolk County Council with BBCs Susanna Reid

Yesterday, I had the real pleasure of tagging along with the Suffolks Household Waste Recycling Centre team to LetsRecycle.coms Awards for Excellence in Recycling & Waste Management. 

The awards, now in their 10th year, and presented by the BBCs Susanna Reid, were held at the Landmark Hotel, London, a beautiful setting to mark the successes and excellence of the recycling and waste management industry, the kind of things that go on behind the scenes that help the UK recycle more and reduce wasted resources.

Ive been singing the praises of Suffolks recycling facilities as part of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, so it was great to hear that the Hadleigh HWRC was in the running for the category of Community Amenity Site of the Year,

With composting and recycling rates that exceed 90%, Hadleigh HWRC, managed by Suffolk County Council and FCC Environment, has been identified as Suffolk ’s top performing site, with successful and effective day-to-day operations providing an enhanced service to users.

Both Suffolk County Council and FCC Environment have engaged with local third sector organisations including the Ipswich Furniture project and ‘Re-cycle’ both of which are charities that have diverted items from landfill.  Ipswich Furniture Project provides an outlet for furniture and crockery, with ‘Re-Cycle’ giving unwanted cycles a new life.  This has enabled improvements on the recycling performance within the existing site footprint and moves more of the materials up the waste hierarchy, with almost no environmental impact.

The site only has two members of staff during the week and three at weekends to manage all waste streams and maintain the high recycling rate and excellent customer service. Much of the success of the sites recycling rate is attributed to the site staff and their relationship with the public. 

But these awards always bring stiff competition and this year the team was up against the Witchford HRC, in Cambridgeshire and Witley Community Recycling Centre in Surrey.

And the winner was...... well...  sadly not the team from Hadleigh HWRC on this occasion, but another worthy winner, Witley CRC, which is part of a network of 15 facilities managed by Sita, and which has been redesigned with sustainability at its heart and strong community engagement in its development.

Ooooh, so close!  They may not have won at yesterdays event but being a finalist in the awards and one of the top performing Household Waste Recycling Centres in the UK, Hadleigh HWRC is most definitely a winner in my eyes and it was great to chat to Mel & Terry (pictured above with Susanna Reid) about their stories of what its like being on the ground at one of our countys facilities. The passion for what they do is so easy to see.

Once again, in a good way, it felt like I was a bit of a recycling groupie following the band, and a very successful one at that.  Seriously, when you witness how the awards nominees are changing the future of waste, their efforts, successes and enthusiasm really does rub off.

With wide-ranging categories such as High Street Recycling Champion, Commercial Recycling Champion, Best Community Recycling Initiative and Recycling Businesses of the Year, I wonder if next year, well see more entries from Suffolk.  After all, from our own Greenest Suffolk awards and some of the great things coming out of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, I reckon our county could offer up some stiff competition for next years awards.

Huge thanks to Letsrecycle.com for letting me come along to support our fantastic team from Suffolk.  There were some great winners and finalists, all which can be seen either on the website or by following the updates on Twitter, using the hashtag #awardsforexcellence.

 

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Brilliance in Blogging Awards Please vote for this waste busting blogger

Ive just discovered the wonderful news that The Rubbish Diet has been shortlisted for the Brilliance in Blogging awards, which will be hosted by the BritMums Live event in June.

Id firstly like to thank all the kind folk who nominated my blog. The news was a fabulous surprise, especially as over the last two months Ive had my head firmly buried in other peoples virtual bins.

Apparently there were over 12,000 nominations registered across many blogs, so I feel especially honoured to have made it to the top 20 blogs listed in the category of CHANGE.




The public vote has already commenced, and if The Rubbish Diet makes it to the final list, I will personally feel chuffed to bits, but more importantly, it will be a great opportunity to raise the profile of this blog and for bin-slimming habits to reach a wider audience and help embed the change that is needed to help reduce this countrys waste footprint.

I felt too shy to ask for nominations, but today I am actually going to ask for your vote, as I would love the opportunity to raise awareness of waste reduction even wider within a blogging community that has already shown an appetite for such change.

Those who have followed the various campaigns that I have either instigated or promoted over the last four years, have done so with great enthusiasm.  From the early days of the recycling carnival, to Recycle Week, Zero Waste Week, Bagladys Living ASAP, the 1000 bin challenge and finally the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012, there has been one heck of a lot of support from the parent blogging network.

I now want to capture that energy and make sure the waste-busting message amongst bloggers gathers even further momentum.  Reaching the finals of the awards would most definitely help me empower other bloggers to do more and my brain is already thinking about some exciting campaigns that could capture the imagination of such a creative community, which has an amazing ability to inspire its far reaching audiences.

So if you have a moment to spare, just a few minutes is all it takes, do pop along to the Voting Page and VOTE.

Youll find The Rubbish Diet listed in the third category down, nestled amongst all the other brilliant blogs that have been nominated for the CHANGE! award.  Quite rightly, its going to be tough competition, so your vote really will count. And of course, do vote for others that have inspired you too.

Im off there myself in a mo to check out the other categories. Good luck to all the bloggers who have made the shortlists.  And to anyone who takes the time to vote for my blog, Id like to say a HUGE THANK YOU!  Your support is very much appreciated.


To view all the categories and place your vote, please visit: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bibs_shortlist Voting closes on 30 April 2012.

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