London Marathon: Cawleys race to save the planet
As one of the largest independent waste management companies in South East England, Cawleys was specially chosen to manage the waste collection and recycling around the Virgin Money London Marathon 2019.
With plastic pollution and carbon emissions high on the public agenda, the events team at the Virgin London Marathon were more concerned than ever about the waste generated by the race and the need to minimise environmental damage.
As such, they opted to work with Cawleys. Known for their commitment to sustainability, not only did Cawleys commit to segregating the waste at the start line, Tower Bridge and the finish line collected at the event to ensure maximum recycling rates, there were also additional strategies in place.
Firstly, under an agreement with the bottled water suppliers, Cawleys actively collected as much single-use plastic bottles from the race and returned them to the manufacturers for recycling.
Secondly, as Cawleys are one of the few waste management companies that are able pass all general black bag waste through a full materials recycling facility, they ensured all waste, whether segregated for recycling or not, was passed through this facility. This allowed all general waste from the areas that we were responsible for to be sorted so that items suitable for recycling could be pulled out and put to good use. All waste deemed unsuitable for recycling was processed and sent to as refuse derived fuel (RDF). Working with Cawleys the event organisers could rest assured that they were doing all they could to protect the environment in line with the good work done for charity by the event.
On the actual day the clean-up was run with complete precision. 300 Cawleys branded bins were positioned along the course. Five portable compactors were used at the finish line to help the clean - up operation run smoothly reduce the volume of waste collected and a total of 8 HGVs were employed to collect the waste to return the recyclable bottles to Buxton and the general waste to the Luton depot.