The Consultant - Q1 2009 - (Page 51) Waste Management Initiatives in Europe Enclosed vessels used by Migros convert the waste to compressed natural gas (CNG) suitable for use as a vehicle fuel (with some going to the company's own delivery vehicles) or for onward transmission to mains gas suppliers or combined heat and power (CHP) facilities. One tonne of food waste can generate 130-150 cubic metres of gas plus 500 kg of compost for garden use and 300 litres of liquid fertiliser. The beneficial results of the trials have encouraged other large food businesses in Switzerland, including the McDonald's chain, to try similar projects. Several European branches of the hamburger giant are also progressing with the use of bio-diesel, processed from spent oil from its fryers, for use on the company's own delivery vehicles. In plans announced in July 2008, the chain announced that the oil from about 900 McDonald's restaurants in the UK is to be combined with pure rapeseed oil to make vehicle fuel. The projected carbon saving of the move is 1,675 tonnes annually, equivalent to removing over 2,400 family cars from the road each year. French contract foodservice giant Sodexo is also introducing spent oil conversion. The group claims that 95 percent of its business units have now implemented environmental programmes committed to reducing use of non-renewable resources and recycling of waste products. Units in 12 countries are certified to ISO 14001 for environmental protection management and the company now has recycling and treatment programmes for cardboard, paper, aluminium, plastic, glass, metal and wood as well as frying oil and effluent waste. Sodexo is also tackling office waste, as with its GreenBacks program in Sweden, which was developed by Sodexo in partnership with leading recyclers Ragn-Sells as a system of processing waste and providing cleaning services at offices. Currently 10 Swedish clients are on GreenBacks contracts. IMC (a Welsh company) has developed a three-part system for converting kitchen food waste to high grade compost. Corporate social responsibility Whitbread, the UK's largest hotel and restaurant company with 1600 outlets from pubrestaurants (notably Beefeater and Brewers Fayre) and coffee bars (Costa) and budget hotels (Premier Inns) now includes waste reduction within a series of stated environment and energy policies – promotion of recycling, use of recycled materials and waste reduction, wherever possible – to which all Whitbread businesses are required to comply as part of corporate social responsibility. Whitbread applies several approaches to waste management on day-to-day operations, including: • compliance to a general waste contract (now applying to over 50 percent of the group's total estate) plus improvement of the quantity and quality of data collected. The group's latest publicly available year-on-year performance figures show the amount of waste disposed annually (30,788 tonnes in 2007-08) alongside figures for glass and First Quarter 2009 51
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