Environment - waste
Our approach to managing waste is geared around the principle of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Responsible disposal.
Our present goal is to have zero waste to landfill by 2010 across the UK. This will be achieved by reducing waste at source, where this is not possible the priority is to find ways to reuse it or recycle.
As technology and facilities become available, we will explore the use of incineration with energy recovery and other compatible methods to avoid disposal to landfill.
This work is being undertaken by our cross departmental Waste steering group. We also have a specialist engineering waste champions group.
This approach is already working. In 2008 we saw a fall of some 10 per cent across Heathrow and Gatwick of waste to landfill compared to the previous year.
We are also winning awards - in November 2008 we proudly won the Pfm Award for Partners in Sustainability for our work with Amaryllis on the reuse and recycling of our office and lounge furniture.
Find out more about waste
Click the topics below for more information.
Reducing
Waste management continues to be a priority area for our environmental programme. The challenge is to manage a complex range of wastes generated by a variety of business activities.
How we're cutting our waste
We are taking steps to reduce the amount of paper we use:
- All of our employees have email and our payslips are now electronic
- 10,000 pages of paper-based manuals moved online
- 12,000 paper approval forms per month now handled electronically using online surveys wherever possible
Our efforts to reduce waste are producing positive results
- In 2008 the total amount of waste handled by our waste management contractor at Heathrow and Gatwick decreased by some 10% compared to the previous year
- We have set a target to reduce waste per passenger at Heathrow and Gatwick by 2% year on year. In 2007 we exceeded this target and reduced our waste by 2.6%.
Water conservation
We also recognise water as a valuable resource and we routinely monitor water consumption whenever possible. We managed to achieve a 9% reduction in our water consumption at our main London hubs of Heathrow and Gatwick, compared to the previous year.
Reusing
Where possible we promote the reuse of products in their current form whether across BA or by third parties. This includes using the item again for the same function it was originally designed for or new-life reuse where it is used for a different function.
This conserves the inbuilt resources and energy and is typically the most environmentally efficient approach.
Examples of where we have re-used our waste includes;
- During the year, we have continued to work with our furniture management partner Amaryllis, to reuse and recycle unwanted office furniture.
- donating old onboard blankets to elephant orphanages in Kenya and Zambia
- a mobile phone recycling scheme that sees phones sold to developing markets at affordable prices (with proceeds donated to the nature conservation charity, Fauna and Flora International)
Recycling
Recycling opportunities come in many different guises. We have set ourselves a target of 50% recycled by 2010. Examples of what we have undertaken include:
- Building on our newspaper recycling trial on shorthaul aircraft arriving at Heathrow and have now extended this to some other destinations in Europe
- We have installed new recycling centres at our head office segregating our waste further to include plastic cups and lids and paper beverage cups
- At Heathrow's Terminal 5 around 97% of construction waste has been recycled, and we are continuing to develop innovative ways of managing our waste during operation
- Around 30% of solid waste at Heathrow and Gatwick is recycled
- All printer and photocopier paper in our UK offices is made of recycled paper and is in turn recycled
Innovations
Our drive to manage waste responsibly covers less obvious ways of recycling too:
- worldwide furniture management contract with Amaryllis who promote waste minimisation including the reuse and recycling of office furniture
- building environmental considerations into the buying, running and disposal of our IT equipment and processes
Responsible disposal
From summer 2009 any waste from our Heathrow and Gatwick operations that can't be reused or recycled will be incinerated at Grundon's state of the art waste incinerator at Colnbrook near Heathrow.
We will capture the heat generated as electricity ensuring our waste brings a benefit rather than simply going to landfill.
Incinerating not only generates valuable electricity but it avoids the use of increasingly scarce landfill space and the production of landfill methane which is 20 times more globally warming than carbon dioxide.
We seek suitable alternatives to landfill around the other airports we serve and will continue to investigate new technologies and methods of managing waste as they are developed.