Sorting in your company - why the cleaning team is your first point of contact
Cleaning teams and other facility services play a crucial role in waste management at the office. Not only do they keep the workplace tidy, but they are often the first point of contact for sorting, and keep an eye on the rubbish bins. Fost Plus and Facilicom are therefore working together to optimise waste sorting, and PMD in particular, in the workplace.
Good waste management does not begin and end with the waste operator who periodically comes to pick up the containers or bags. Commercial cleaners are the first to come into contact with waste items. It is therefore important that they have a good understanding of waste management to be able to implement it. After all, companies and organisations are required to sort certain waste streams, including PMD. Moreover, sorting ensures that all packaging material can really be collected for recycling. Fost Plus, which is responsible for the organisation and financing of the recycling chain for household packaging, and Facilicom Group, the number 1 Belgian facilities service provider, are therefore joining forces to optimise waste management in the workplace.
Steven Boussemaere, Fost Plus: “The cleaning staff is the first point of contact on the ground when it comes to waste. By working together with Facilicom, we have 25,000 more ambassadors to promote better PMD sorting on the work floor.”
As part of the project, Fost Plus is organising training programmes, in collaboration with Goodplanet, in line with the principle of train-the-trainer. From supervisors and area managers to the professional cleaning crew – the important thing is that they understand their contribution to more and better PMD sorting. But business owners also share this responsibility. By training employees to dispose of their waste correctly, they can considerably reduce their ecological footprint.
Maddy Claes, KZI Manager at Facilicom: “Via practice-oriented sessions, we enhance our employees’ know-how. Not only so that they themselves are better able to handle waste, but also to be able to provide guidelines in the organisations where they are active. GoodPlanet is the ideal partner for this, because they make the ideas behind sustainabile development concrete. For Facilicom it is a logical part of our services as a one-stop service partner.”
Steven Boussemaere, Fost Plus: “It is estimated that around 20,000 tonnes of PMD end up in mixed industrial waste every year. It's a shame, for it means that these materials are lost to the circular economy. By supporting companies in their sorting process, we keep materials within the chain as secondary raw materials.”
Listen to the podcast to find out more
To find out more about this exciting collaboration between Facilicom and Fost Plus, we invite you to listen to the podcast in which our colleague Greet Hofman, Project Manager, took part. It's the perfect opportunity to go behind the scenes of this innovative initiative and discover how you too can contribute to responsible waste management in your workplace.
Please note that this podcast is only available in Dutch.