Professional joinery and hardware solutions firm Formed has revealed that it has exceeded its own sustainbility goal. The company says that for the past year, the team at Formed have been working on plans to make warehouse operations more efficient and environmentally friendly.
The plans include a reduction of general waste bin collections per week, along with the amount of cardboard waste collections. The full fleet of diesel warehouse equipment has been switched to fully electric, and there are also plans in place to fully remove the use of plastic from the warehouse, and to introduce more environmentally friendly packaging.
Warehouse operations manager, Adam Kowalewski (pictured), is heading up the project. He said: “One of my first objectives was to reduce our cardboard waste collection to zero. To achieve this the company invested in a cardboard baler so all waste is compressed and baled and now goes to other companies who recycle it for their own use.”
According to statistics from the Wood Recyclers Association, there has been a year-on-year rise in how much waste wood is recycled or reprocessed. Waste wood is often turned into new products such as recycled wooden flooring or garden decking, other uses vary but the most common are animal bedding, feedstock for panel boards, and more recently, there has been a significant rise in the amount of waste wood that is converted into biomass feedstocks that are burned for energy. Inspired by this, Kowalewski discovered a way of removing and recycling the wood generated on site.
He said: “Forest School in Lincolnshire is reusing the waste wood and broken pallets to create outdoor play equipment for use in all sorts of activities for children. This is a new partnership between Formed and Forest School. They will collect all the broken pallets and wood waste from us regularly, free of charge.”
Designed to develop confidence and self-esteem through experiences in a natural setting, Forest School is a child-centred learning process that offers a long-term programme that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking.
Kowalewski said: “This is a great initiative for the company to support, whilst also allowing us to exceed our target to significantly reduce waste materials on site.”
