Press Releases
Focus On West Midlands
28/10/2009
Last spring Every Can Counts began a campaign to encourage businesses to
join the programme. This included running advertisements in the regional business press and on-line, and contacting businesses by email and direct mail.
As a result Every Can Counts is now up and running in over 50 organisations in the West Midlands, and we are now working with these businesses providing advice and support as they launch and promote drinks can recycling. Here we profile some of the first organisations to sign up to the programme:
Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Northfield
The Royal Orthopaedic NHS Foundation Trust is leading the way by becoming the first Birmingham hospital to sign up to Every Can Counts.
Reducing the hospital’s carbon footprint was one of the main reasons that Facilities General Manager Robert Street decided to sign up to the initiative.
“Now that everyone can recycle at home, we wanted to make it easy for staff and patients to maintain their recycling habit, while at the same time improving our carbon footprint through the avoidance of sending waste to landfill” says Robert.
“At the moment we have five bright green collection boxes around the hospital including in vending areas and the staff restaurant. We’ve recently installed an Every Can Counts can crusher for the Outpatients’ department, which crushes the cans as they are deposited, and is fun and safe to use.”
Every Can Counts really caught the imagination of hospital staff at a recent environmental awareness day – so much so that a further 10 locations have now been set up around the hospital after requests from nurses to have boxes in the staff areas on some of the wards.
Brindleyplace, Birmingham
Situated in the heart of Birmingham, Brindleyplace is a vibrant area of the city, combining office space and leisure attractions.
And now Brindleyplace is leading the way by becoming one of the first major business locations to join Every Can Counts. Brindleyplace management have been given bright green Every Can Counts collection boxes and stickers which are being used in offices to encourage staff to recycle their drink cans.
Eye-catching promotional materials are also available for employers to use to encourage staff to keep recycling.
West Midlands Fire Service
The West Midlands Fire Service has launched Every Can Counts in every one of its 39 fire stations as part of a plan to ensure staff are committed to protecting the environment.
Elaine Debenham, Senior Safety, Health and Environmental Manager for West Midlands Fire Service, said: "A number of initiatives have been put in place in the last few years to promote environmental awareness among staff and to actively reduce the Services’ carbon footprint. The Every Can Counts campaign is an ideal way for us to promote the can recycling message to our employees and encourage them to recycle.”
Other initiatives across the West Midlands Fire Service include cycling to work and car sharing schemes. There are also a number of ‘Environmental Champions’ – employees across the organisation with the specific additional responsibility of promoting good practice to protect the environment. Every Can Counts hopes to work with these ‘champions’ on initiatives to help them motivate their colleagues to get into a regular recycling habit.
