Recycle Week
Recycle week takes place every year in October to help encourage businesses and communities to recycle more of the right things, more often. This year the campaign celebrated its 20th year, and the focus was on “missed capture” - the items that can be recycled but are commonly missed in the home. After last week’s recycling week, we’ve taken some time to reflect on our own environmental practices as a company and we’re proud to share some updates from across our estates.
The property industry as whole uses a wide range of recyclable resources, from construction materials like wood, glass and concrete, to furniture and lighting. But Residential housing also produces a great deal of household waste. With research suggesting that as many as eight in 10 households are still failing to recycle simple items like cardboard, plastic and food.
ELM Group manage over 115 residential estates across the UK, and with a push on sustainable initiatives in the last few years, we wanted to reflect on a few of the recycling projects and sustainable ventures that have been implemented in 2023.
One of our estates in Warnham, East Sussex captured some photos of their compost heap, which they use to recycle all their garden waste to be reused in the garden come autumn. Composting is a great way to protect the climate, as by diverting waste from landfills, it reduces methane emissions, allowing organic materials to be recycled into a useful product – compost! Many of the estates we manage have extensive gardens and so compost heaps provide a way for lots of our Estate Managers to repurpose this waste. As you can see at this estate the grounds look great.
One of our estates in Tunbridge Wells recently ‘upcycled’ an old wooden pallet into a herb garden for residents to use. The estate has a large allotment within the grounds, which residents tend to every year, growing fresh vegetables for everyone to enjoy. One resident said: “the allotment has many benefits for us, firstly, fresh fruit and vegetables, social time together, as well as helping us to realise how the temperature of our planet is changing”. Many of the estates we manage across the UK have allotments within their grounds, whether it be raised beds, greenhouses, or vegetable patches, it’s a great project for everyone to get involved with.
Another estate we manage recently completed a project to replace a number of timber unilogs with a more durable and sustainable alternative which saved residents £2,000. The retirement estate which is located in East Horsley, Surrey features extensive landscaped grounds, and to retain the estate’s rural feel, pressure treated softwood timber was used throughout the grounds and gardens. Over time, the treated timber placed in the ground naturally decayed, requiring full replacement, presenting an extensive and costly project.
Prior to joining ELM, the new Estate Manager had replaced wooden edging boards with Kedel brown recycled composite logs made from recycled single use plastics, and so investigated this option for the estate, identifying a more cost effective and sustainable solution with Carrin Construction to replace the unilogs with composite alternatives which are much longer lasting.
Everyone is delighted with the outcome of the works and it really was a win on many levels; this important health and safety issue has been resolved, future maintenance costs for the leaseholders have been significantly reduced, less waste has been sent to landfill as the original logs went on the compost heap, the natural aesthetic of the site has been retained with the wooden style materials, and by using the Kedel logs, less single use plastics are out there polluting the environment.
