Recently, sustainability manager Marlous van der Veen from the Drenthe drinking water company WMD began collaborating with Milgro. One day, while standing at the coffee machine, a colleague asked her which bin a plastic lid should go in. 'Look,'' she said, ''awareness—there's already a win!''And there's more to come.
Van der Veen describes her organization: "We have been making drinking water for Drenthe for more than 85 years and we do it very well. Drinking water is in itself the most sustainable thirst-quencher, so in that sense, we are already acting responsibly. However, the focus on sustainability, particularly the circular economy and how we consciously manage resources, is still relatively new within our organization.''
WMD already performing well
However, Marlous van der Veen doesn't mean that nothing more can be done. Quite the opposite. Waste is already well-separated at the various locations of the Drenthe water company, and the waste streams are of high quality. In addition, WMD works with local processors, reducing the environmental impact of transport. This could be described as 'unconsciously competent. ''Just by using our common sense, we’ve already made significant progress. For example, we refurbish our water meters at the end of their lifespan, meaning we rarely need to purchase new ones. That’s great, of course, but as a company that recognizes its responsibility towards resources, we can’t let opportunities like these pass us by''.
Control over waste
To make WMD consciously competent and take control of waste and resource management, the sustainability manager decided to partner with Milgro. ''Milgro is a specialist in providing insights into waste management, and that’s exactly what we’re still missing."
From separate contracts to one
Marlous van der Veen provides an example. "We had separate waste contracts at all our locations. As a result, we received 160 different invoices every year, all related to waste.'' Not only did this make it difficult for WMD to gain insight into its total waste streams and their environmental impact, but processing those 160 invoices was also a time-consuming task. ''Now, we’ve consolidated all waste management through Milgro. The benefit is that Milgro is an independent party, so they have no interest in favoring any particular processor. Plus, this reduces the number of invoices we handle each month to just one.''
"The waste scan gave us insight into all our flows. An eye-opener for WMD," Van der Veen knows.
The waste scan, an eyeopener
Milgro began its partnership with WMD by conducting a waste scan. In this scan, Milgro explored potential improvements through smarter waste management. ''The waste scan gave us insight into all our waste streams. It was a real eye-opener for WMD'',Van der Veen explains. The scan also confirmed that WMD is already performing well. ''We have a 90% separation rate, which is quite high. This is largely because our employees are skilled at identifying and separating different types of waste materials''. The scan also revealed that WMD has a significant waste stream from asbestos-cement water pipes, which are being replaced by plastic pipes. 'That’s a challenging waste stream to recycle, so finding the best way to manage it will be a challenge''.
WMD and the CSRD
As sustainability manager, Van der Veen is also in charge of the sustainability section of WMD's annual report. The company faces new European regulations in this area; the Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD). This requires detailed information on sustainability to be published. Also about waste. "Through Milgro's online dashboard we can get that waste data relatively easily above water. I shouldn't have thought about having to request this information in a fragmented way from our various waste processors.''
Reducing measures
As stated, the cooperation between Milgro and WMD is fresh. Concrete results of improvement cannot yet be presented by Van der Veen. In the waste scan, Milgro advises to take savings measures to further increase the separation percentage. This should ensure cost savings, even better processing and CO2 reduction. "We will start working on that in the coming months."
Want to know more?
Want to learn more about our approach or explore the possibilities for your organization in a no-obligation discussion? Schedule an appointment now with Paula van Hoorik, Circular Economy Officer at Milgro.
