Stacking up for the environment

Stacking up for the environment

South Yorkshire engineering and reliability company AESSEAL believes it has come up with a ‘cunning plan’ to save wooden pallets from the scrapheap and help environmental charities.

Company Managing Director, Chris Rea, says, “We thought it was time to roll up our sleeves for environmental savings and the heap of used wooden pallets that all businesses generate was one of the things to catch our eye”.

Like many major companies, AESSEAL receives deliveries on wooden pallets. Conventionally these are almost always discarded afterwards, and are classed as ‘waste’, impacting on waste reduction strategies and generating disposal costs.

However, the company estimates that up to 2,500 per year of the pallets bringing deliveries are in good enough condition to be reused. The only problem was that waste legislation classes them as rubbish that must go for disposal – unless, that is, they can be re-sold.

In response, the company has reached an agreement to sort through the euro pallets in order to collect and resell the best ones at a low cost to a local supplier who had reported problems getting enough pallets.

AESSEAL managing director, Chris Rea, says: “This may be a small measure but it shows how thinking out of the box can help companies and the environment at the same time.

“Because the pallets are being sold on and can be reused for their original purpose, AESSEAL saves on disposal or recycling costs with licensed contractors, and helps a supplier get quality pallets at a low cost.”

It is estimated that around 2,500 pallets will be saved from the scrapheap per year, generating up to £3,000 that AESSEAL will ring-fence and donate to environmental causes.