Quaker Oats - making oats good business sense

Background

The Business Environment Partnership (BEP) funded student, Pauline Pirie, for an 8-week placement with Quaker Oats to reduce the amount of waste that the site was sending to landfill. 

Quaker has over a century of oat experience and has been milling oats in the UK since 1899. Quaker prides itself on its leading oat knowledge and expertise.  Our oat experts oversee the milling of all Quaker Oats, kilning them for 3 hours to ensure that they are milled to perfection. Quaker works closely with its UK growers, developing the best quality oats through field trials and by continuously improving growing practices.

Waste identification

The project set out to determine the exact quantity of each type of waste being disposed of, mainly in the packing areas of the factory. 

These wastes included metal, various plastics, by-products and sachets. It was found that there was the potential to divert 793 tonnes, which would mean savings of £35,910 for the business. 

Receptacles had to be found for the recycling and a collection method implemented to gather the waste efficiently.  The central part of the placement was the education and training of all the staff in waste awareness and how to manage their waste effectively.

Business & environmental benefits

During the placement 94.5 tonnes of waste was diverted from landfill and one of the Fife Council skips was removed resulting in  savings of of £4,220 and £7,125 respectively, per year. 

Additionally a plastic baler and cardboard compactor were also installed and these will increase the amount of available space in the skips and reduce the collection frequency.

Further significant reductions are excpected once training and waste material segregation have been established. 

The future

In addition Pauline produced a three-year action plan of recommendations and targets focusing on waste, energy, water and biodiversity, which was presented to the Vice President of operations of PepsiCo UK by the management.