London Stansted hits recycling record and reduces electricity consumption
•54% of airport waste recycled or composted •4% reduction in electricity consumption from the grid
London Stansted hit a recycling record in 2010 as 54% of all airport waste was recycled or composted. Electricity consumption from the grid reduced by over 4 million kWh, equivalent to the annual use of over 890 homes1, a saving of 4% compared to 2009.
To help Stansted achieve its record breaking performance, a series of initiatives are now embedded into everyday airport life, including:
- ‘Don’t Stand By Switch Off’ campaign to get electrical items switched off overnight
- engagement of energy champions to promote energy efficiency in their area of work
- improved performance of motion sensors on escalators and travelators
- low energy lighting fitted around the airfield
- engineering project to improve efficiency of existing air conditioning systems
On waste:
- catering companies gave full support to a new food composting scheme, and between May and December a staggering 158 tonnes of food waste was diverted from landfill
- over 1,400 tonnes of green waste was composted on-site, and the amount of card and paper collected for recycling exceeded 700 tonnes, compared to 450 in 2009
- five year waste management strategy launched in November, with a three ‘R’ focus to ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’
- ambitious targets set to send 0% of waste direct to landfill and recycle 60% of total airport waste by 2015
“Making such great progress on our waste and electricity performance in 2010 was only made possible thanks to the efforts of staff across the whole airport site and the support of our business partners,” said the airport’s head of health, safety and environment, Dr Andy Jefferson.
“We’re very proud of our environmental credentials that include ISO14001 for environmental management, OHSAS18001 for health and safety systems and Carbon Trust Standard for carbon reductions from vehicles and buildings, and whilst we’re delighted with our year end results, our ambition remains firmly focussed on improving performance even further.”
During 2011, focus in the areas of waste management and reducing electricity consumption from the grid will be concentrated on:
- maintaining initiatives already in place and improving performance
- delivering “Don’t Stand By Switch Off” to third party companies on airport
- considering energy consumption when making changes to buildings or equipment
- working towards target to send zero waste direct to landfill by 2015
- focussing efforts on separating and recycling plastic