Cleaning up on plastic waste and CO2 emissions

06 Oct 2021

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Leading provider of critical infrastructure for local and national Government, Amey, has successfully reduced plastic and CO2 waste by 97% across their cleaning operations.  

In 2020 Amey’s Secure Infrastructure business embarked on a journey to transform the way it cleans schools in Bradford, Barnsley, Northampton and offices on behalf of National Highways. 

Working together with their supply chain partner Zenith Hygiene and 2Pure, Amey’s new Cleaning Excellence model focuses on environmentally friendly practices and cleaning products that use renewable resources while still but still providing high-quality sanitisation and COVID mitigation. As a result, Amey has reduced plastic bottles by 44,319 and CO2 waste by 11,505kg.  

The new Cleaning Excellence model reduces:  

• single-use plastic waste and CO2 emissions - by moving away from small ready to use products to larger concentrates that are diluted on site. Reusing and refiling existing containers and cleaning cloths 
• the use of harmful chemicals – protecting employees and building users while mitigating water pollution 
• water usage - through the investment in new and innovative cleaning equipment 

Closed-loop recycling of the larger concentrate containers will further reduce plastic waste and CO2 emissions. 

The outcome 

As part of the transformation, Amey also focused on behaviour change and empowering employees to act by equipping them with knowledge and the ability to make a positive change to protect the planet.  

The training focus on a variety of activities ranging from the human and environmental safety of chemicals and products to eco-efficiency, corporate social responsibility, health and safety, and better resource and dosing use.  

80% of employees surveyed at the end of the training stated they saw the move to a less harmful environmentally cleaning model as a positive step.  

Stephanie Quinnin, Director of Soft Services, Amey Secure Infrastructure, said: “The protection of our planet is a key challenge for us all. As an industry, we need to adapt and be innovative to find ways to be more sustainable and reduce waste both from carbon emissions and plastic waste. Changing the way, we clean buildings is one of the many steps we are making to transform the soft services we deliver. We aim to be a leader in providing sustainable solutions to our customers, where we work together with our people and supply chain partners to embed practical, safe and environmentally friendly ways of working across all our operations".  

The new Cleaning Excellence model is now being rolled out in a phased approach across Amey’s Edinburgh, Renfrewshire, Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow and Clackmannanshire school FM operations.  

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