CMS Enviro Systems Ltd - Winner - "Waste Award" in the Green Business Fife Awards 2009
Despite housing hundreds and hundreds of old, disused doors and windows, the CMS Enviro Systems facility in Glenrothes is immaculately, and impressively, organised. It has to be because this is the hub of a recycling operation for the company, which supplies new windows and doors to Fife Council, local trade and domestic customers.
CMS has always had a policy of taking away old doors and windows when they fitted new replacements, but the development of its recycling policy has brought financial benefits, customer benefits and environmental benefits. The company has stayed ahead of the ever- increasing legislative requirements and added value to their operations.
Recycling
CMS has a policy of 100% recycling of customers' waste products and its own waste, both factory and office generated. All the timber in the old doors and windows is stripped of glass and aluminium and chipped down into shavings, which are used to heat the company's Cumbernauld factory. Each time a lorry comes to deliver windows from Cumbernauld to Glenrothes, it leaves packed with wood shavings for the carbon neutral biomass boiler. Plans to extend this to the Fife operation are in the pipeline.
Glass is recycled and the company is constantly reviewing the best possible methods to handle this to minimise cost and maximise value.
CMS has been recycling PVC offcuts since it started manufacturing, but has added the PVC collected from the old windows and doors, which it chips down like the wood and sends for recycling into fresh PVC. Chipping down the material also creates savings in transport as the lorries can be packed more effectively with regular sized bags of chips than random shapes and sizes of PVC strips. CMS also separates out lead free PVC as part of the recycling process and is the largest, and one of the first companies, in Scotland to use organically stabilised lead free material.
By using PVC reinforcement throughout the design, the company's doors and windows are more environmentally friendly, but crucially are lighter for handling and installation and provide stronger hold for fixing screws than traditional versions. PVC gives a good thermal performance during its lifetime and when the frames are eventually replaced, they can be collect and recycled easily.
Service
For companies that choose it, CMS offers a service that provides its own refuge lorry to work alongside fitters, collecting and crushing the discarded windows and doors as the job progresses. This alleviates the need for extra transport to a central point, starts the recycling process more quickly and the lorry's specialist equipment separates out the component materials.
In Fife, the lorry rolls over a small portable weighbridge and unloads the materials. On the way out, the company provides the driver with a Waste Transfer Note, which is required by legislation and ensures that the waste material is fully traceable. These notes are electronically stored on a secure system which can be made accessible to CMS customers via the internet.
Environmental Responsibility
CMS has conducted a Carbon Report to assess its performance and recognises the benefits of producing this on an annual basis across the company to benchmark performance, measure costs and savings, and reassure customers of the company's commitment to good, sustainable, environmental management. This is especially important to local authority customers like Fife Council, with stringent environmental standards to meet.
The company also works with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) which helps businesses reduce waste, recycle more and make better use of resources to help tackle climate change.
CMS has achieved ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 accreditation and subscribes to the Vinyl 2010 Voluntary Commitment. This commits companies to recycle the majority of post-use collectable frames. In 2005, this surpassed the 50% mark.
The CMS Enviro Systems corporate policy of putting sustainable use of resources at the heart of the business has resulted in the continued success of the company and the financial savings benefit staff and customers.