Stand up and SMILE :)
Fionnuala Carolan discovers how the SMILE (Saving Money through Industry Links and Exchanges) initiative can help businesses save money
Print15 June 2012
Did you know?
- Ireland produces over 3 million tonnes of municipal waste each year
- Waste alone often costs a business 5-20 times the cost of disposal
- Wastage of resources costs companies up to 4.5% of turnover
SMILE Resource Exchange encourages the idea that one person’s waste is another’s resource. This free initiative aims to identify potential exchanges through networking events and an online exchange facility. On the website members can post information on materials they want to get rid of or find materials they might use. To date there have been over 1,000 potential matches between its 500 members, as well as identifying thousands of euros of cost savings for businesses.
Landfill levy to rise
The landfill levy is set to rise this year in a series of planned hikes, which will more than double the charge from its existing level at the start of 2011. The levy is scheduled to increase from €50 a tonne to €65 a tonne, followed by a further increase to €75 a tonne on 1 June 2013. Due to this many businesses will be interested in reducing current waste levels because if a retailer sends approximately 50 tonnes of waste to landfill, this hike will increase their annual costs by €2,250. The increases are designed to make landfill uneconomical and help move waste away from disposal, and concentrate minds on resource management and waste prevention.
The start of something good
SMILE Resource Exchange is project managed by Macroom E and is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Cork County Council, Cork City Council and the four enterprise boards in Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Clare.
Green explains that a website called www.wastematchers.com was around for years but was primarily targeted at domestic users. While there was a section for businesses but they weren’t really engaging. She says: “We decided to do a survey, to see why the businesses weren’t engaging and the businesses said they wanted a more face-to-face forum rather than just through a website. The SMILE team decided to run a pilot event back in 2010 to match businesses and see if they could find things that they would like to exchange and the results were very positive.” On the back of this they applied for funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and it got involved.
“The move was very timely because the National Waste Prevention Programme had just been set and within that was a suite of ‘Be Green’ programmes for business, hospitality and retail to try to improve waste management. The EPA saw SMILE as being the resource for businesses and waste exchange,” says Green.
SMILE was established as a six-month pilot in Cork at the end of 2010. “We ran two events and developed the website and started distributing marketing material to raise awareness of what we do to encourage businesses to get involved,” adds Green.
After the six month pilot in Cork they extended the service into Limerick, Clare and Kerry.
Economic benefits
While reusing materials is beneficial to the environmental there are also economic benefits to this programme. “The Environmental Protection Agency is the lead funder of the project and it is trying to help businesses recognise the price of waste management costs for business.”
Green says that the main objective of SMILE is to find businesses that need the resources as there are more people with material to get rid of, than those to take it off their hands. “Cardboard is one of the main materials we deal in. It is a commodity that people want and pay for but there are companies that just don’t have the quantities necessary for this and they have to drive and pay a lot of money to get rid of it at a community site. So there’s a disparity there in that some people are getting paid for it and others have to pay to get rid of it.”
The waste hierarchy
While we are all busy patting ourselves on the back for our recycling efforts, it seems there is more we can be doing. Green explains: “As a nation we’re very good at recycling and we’ve hit all the targets set by Europe so we’re doing well. But the new waste framework directive from Europe lays out a waste hierarchy. So at the bottom of the scale you have landfill, then recycling, then reuse, and prevention is at the top. What we’re really about is preventing material going to recycling or landfill.”
Not to detract from the benefits of recycling but Green says that if material can be used in its current form, that’s even better. However she admits this comes with its own set of challenges. “Markets have been created for recycled goods so you’re competing with some products that people are getting prices for but other people aren’t getting prices because the quantity is too small. A lot of the smaller retailers would have large volumes of cardboard and pallets but it won’t be of interest to the larger companies because they don’t have enough quantity. What we’re trying to find are say, storage removal companies that are interested in getting the boxes to reuse or people just in general looking for storage to reuse the cardboard so someone doesn’t have to drive to a recycling plant and pay to get rid of it. Whoever is receiving it will pick it up.”
Funding
At present SMILE is carrying out a survey to find out who is up-cycling and what supports they need. There is European funding available for Eco innovation projects which people aren’t always aware of.
“Irish companies have never tended to apply for [eco funding] and there is this pot of money available that other European countries are using and Enterprise Ireland are trying to educate businesses to know that this is out there and to apply because Irish companies have a good chance of getting it.”
Corporate social responsibility
Many larger businesses are trying to find ways to reuse waste materials because they have targets to hit in terms of reuse, explains Green. “We want larger companies to get involved because they have a lot of practices that smaller companies could learn from. They also have materials that they sell and the money they get for them is so small in relation to their overall turnover that from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) and an environmental perspective I think they will be willing to give some of that material to businesses that really want it.”
Green says that there are many creative people who want to use recycled material in their products too. “There is a guy down in Cork – Mamuko -who is making bags out of tarpaulin from trucks and materials from wind sales and seatbelts.”
Roundtable events
Organising the roundtable networking events is an important part of marketing the SMILE concept. During these events, which are held about twice a year, each company that attends gets a minute to introduce themselves at their table. Then once this is done, the SMILE team gives out cards denoting offers and wants and they have facilitators capturing potential matches between companies. Green says that they are simply the facilitators of the scheme but don’t get involved in the exchanges, except to try to record as much as they can to understand whether it is working or not. “The feedback is really positive and really encouraging. It’s just about getting more businesses involved and finding people that need the materials.”
Some of the matches that come about through these events would most definitely not happen without these introductions. Green explains an unlikely match. “We had a hotel with lots of furniture and mattresses that they needed to get rid of because they were just not good enough for the standard of their hotel, and they would have paid for a skip to come and take it away. But they found a company down in West Cork that was setting up a charity and wanted a lot of furniture so they donated all they had.”
She says that businesses, especially retailers, often need to get rid of pallets or cardboard quickly because they are a fire hazard. “We want people to sign up for free, say what they have and once we know what’s out there, we can give people ideas of what they have access to and what savings they can make.”
Having just received the next 12 months of funding, they’re trying to make it a national project and are now focusing on Dublin. They are planning on staging an event in the capital in September. For more information on the SMILE initiative check out www.smileexchange.ie.
1. Example of reuse
Dermot McCarthy of O’Donovan Engineering joined SMILE Resource Exchange in 2011. He said: "We found a home for our plastic reels which really proved that one company’s waste is indeed another’s raw material. We are now saving €2,160 per year by rerouting our plastic reels out of landfill."
2. Example of reuse
“A logistics company had huge volumes of styrofoam and they were hiring a skip and sending it to landfill because it can’t be recycled, so we put them in touch with a packaging company that were looking for material they could use for packaging in large volumes with continuity of supply and they wanted a relationship with a business so they connected and it’s now an ongoing exchange. They’re saving about €500 a month because the skip costs money and because styrofoam is very bulky and awkward even though it’s light.”
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