Dunfermline Press | News | Green Business Fife

Tuesday, 6th January, 2009

Published: Thursday, 30th October, 2008 09:30

Green Business Fife - members at work

“Our waste is someone else’s raw material” says Alan Seath, Development Manager of Lomond Homes and former Fife Council planning official as he talks about the company’s recent moves towards selling, bartering and disposing of waste.

The company aims to use everything on site, for obvious cost reasons and to prevent additional transport impact moving materials onto site and then away again in a different form. Commercially, waste minimisation and management has obvious benefits.

Lomond Group is working with Envirowise to audit the company and help draft a waste management strategy. A more recent link is with NISP to discuss how to connect with other companies to use waste profitably.

Investment in a state of the art Optimising Cutting Saw has increased the company’s capacity for timber kit production but additionally allows the company to monitor its timber usage and increase yield to an unprecendented 98%. This has significantly reduced waste by around 20%. The technology involved allows closer, faster and more flexible working between the technical and production departments, by transferring drawings electronically straight to the saw. In fact, the saw is so efficient that it replaces the work of two previous saws with ongoing time and energy savings.

Small Changes Mean A Lot at Seahawk Clothing, Glenrothes

At Seahawk, where every sewing job is measured in minutes, disturbances to production – however worthy the cause – can have a serious impact on the financial performance of the company. The company has, therefore, adopted a policy of improvement for the benefit of staff, company and the environment. These criteria have helped prioritise the changes necessary.

It starts with good housekeeping which ensures that the factory and office is cleaned every night with all waste sorted and recycled. Paper and cardboard are recycled and industrial waste, including sweepings, is placed in the BIFFA collection bin that has been installed outside the workshop entrance. The company is also looking for a specialist company to collect and recycle cotton material scraps left over from production, but so far has not found one in Scotland or the UK.

As canteen equipment is replaced, the company looks for efficient, energy saving models and promoted the benefits of recycling.

The installation of a warm air heater to maintain a comfortable working temperature in the large factory sewing area has proven much more effective than the previous heating arrangements, burns less gas and is much cleaner than before and the company is already seeing a reduction in his gas costs – some 25% over two years.

The company has secured a 30% grant from Fife Council to assist with the installation of new eco lighting throughout the workroom this month. The use of the eco, low energy bulbs will have a positive impact on the cost of lighting, but the improved performance will also directly benefit staff who are producing closely and precisely stitched garments.

The staff uses new and very sophisticated sewing machines, which are also energy efficient. Microchip programmes ensure that they power down when not in use. This reduces the company’s energy bills, but is also important in the costing of the garments that are produced in a highly competitive market place.

Using technology to benefit the environment at BskyB, Dunfermline

Over the past three years, BSkyB (‘Sky') has reduced its carbon emissions by 27% and in May 2006, it became the world's first CarbonNeutral® media company.

All paper used for printing and copying is recycled and all photocopier machines in Dumfermline are automatically set to duplex print. Sky's IT supplier, Ricoh, has a policy where it will plant a fruit tree on behalf of Sky for every 100,000 copies made on its machines. So far, Ricoh have planted 78 trees on behalf of Sky in Scotland.

A further development the team are hoping to implement will be the introduction of networked MFDs (Multi Function Devices) that act as photocopier, fax, scanner and printer in one. This is a company-wide initiative and Facilities and Contracts Manager, Michael Cusack is enthusiastic about the benefits these can bring. Placed at strategic points around the building, they enable the removal of printers from every desk, so saving on equipment and running costs, and deliver cheaper copying and less use of cartridges. But crucially they are also more energy efficient and will therefore reduce the organisation's resource needs by consolidating single function machines.

The redundant printers will also be reused or recycled wherever possible or disposed in an environmentally sound manner. Eventually, Sky hopes to introduce a secure key coding system where each individual has a unique code and can print documents off at any copier in any location simply by tapping in the code ensuring that confidentiality is always maintained and paper and ink is used as efficiently as possible. Sky also ensures that printer toner is recycled as standard practice and in Scotland 463 bottles weighing 167.38kg have been recycled so far.

For more examples of how companies in Fife have improved their environmental performance, click onto www.greenbusinessfife.co.uk

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