Leeds-based Siemens Mechanical Drives, which assembles and services gear units and geared motors for industry, has achieved zero landfill of all its non-hazardous waste in mid-December, making it the second UK manufacturing site within Siemens Industry to do so.
Everything generated at the Stourton, Leeds site is either reused, recycled or utilised for fuel. Allan Randall is environmental health and safety manager at Leeds and he said the company had been working towards this target for some time, “We have been gradually reducing what we send to landfill as part of our Siemens commitment to the environment. Linking up with a new waste operator in May helped us achieve our targets sooner than expected and Siemens Leeds is certainly helping to lead the way.”
Siemens Drive Technologies’ Congleton site was the first manufacturing unit to achieve zero landfill within Siemens Industry UK sector, in summer 2012. Even the fly ash from Congleton‘s specified recovered fuel (SRF) is further utilised in the aggregates industry.
Siemens Mechanical Drives’ partnership with Premier Waste Recycling, a company based in Derbyshire with mixed recycling facilities at Leeds, has brought the non-hazardous waste element down to zero from a previous average of around 1.5% since May. This includes mixed packaging, cardboard, plastic, wood, metals, glass, soil/stones and food waste. Even municipal waste, previously sent to landfill, is now refuse derived fuel (RDF), burned to generate energy at relatively local sites in Newcastle and Sheffield.
Grahame Williams, national sales manager of Premier, said, “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Siemens where we are able to bring and utilise our expertise within waste management to help the Leeds site achieve its zero to landfill targets. We are confident that we can continue to work together and introduce further initiatives that will bring both financial and environmental benefits to Siemens.”
For Siemens, Allan Randall said the partnership with Premier was bringing considerable benefits to Siemens in terms of reducing its carbon footprint and the added bonus of saving the cost of landfill, “For us, being green isn’t actually costly. We are already saving around £2,000 per year in not putting anything to landfill. As landfill costs rise, so will our savings.”
