WT Skip Hire invited to Letsrecycle.com Awards

I was honoured to be invited to the letsrecycle.com Awards for Excellence, which is now in its 10th year. Once again it was a great event, with a nicely balanced range of categories and entrants. It's interesting how the awards, once instinctively tilted towards the waste and local authority sectors, has now spread its wings to reflect the importance that recycling has amongst the retail, commercial and industrial sectors. Blue chip companies such as KP Snacks, Marks and Spencer and Bluewater were finalists this year, and sponsors such as DHL Envirosolutions and the British Heart Foundation were keen to rub shoulders with them. Not only does recycling provide great PR opportunities, it also has economic, social and of course environmental benefits. But more than that, when it is placed at the heart of a business's ethos it can have a profound impact on the way the business is seen by staff and customers. Marks and Spencer's Plan A is a recent good example. On a separate note, it was interesting to see that one of the judges this year was Esther Kiddle, CEO of Women in Waste, a not-for-profit group specialising in the promotion of women in the waste management sector. I remember in the 1990s attending the AGMs of the British Metals Association and British Secondary Metals Association where the only women in the room were serving drinks. Today the metals sector is still a man's world (14 of the now merged BMRA's 15 board members are men), but it was heartening to see so many women at this year's awards and, by extension, working in the waste recycling sector. To sustain its growth the sector needs a range of inputs from people of both genders and a variety of backgrounds. Long may it continue. Click here to see a list of the winners.