Crystal Peaks Shopping Centre

The challenge

Striving to improve in order to achieve the best!

Crystal Peaks Shopping Centre holds over 100 retail shops and independent stalls in Sheffield, welcoming over 11 million visitors a year. Being an enormous hub for the local community, it’s surprising to hear that even before ACM were introduced to Crystal Peaks, they were doing quite well in their waste management plan, sending zero waste to landfill.

However, Steve Salisbury (Facilities Manager at Crystal Peaks) saw the potential for improvement as many were keen to increase segregation from the original 40% to a further 60%. Whilst having issues with their previous supplier not being able to assist with their environmental objectives forward, Crystal Peaks turned to ACM as the environmental consultants suited to the bill.

The solution

RDF: The lesser of two evils

With Crystal Peaks already achieving zero waste to landfill, you would imagine that there would be no more room for improvement. However, with landfill no longer being an issue, ACM were able to concentrate on the lesser evil; waste to energy. Crystal Peak’s general waste which usually would be sent to landfill, was being diverted to a facility which would burn the material to produce energy. Although this is an alternative to landfill, the process to create refuse derived fuel (RDF) emits a large amount of pollutants into the atmosphere. In reality, most of the waste being categorised as general waste was able to be recycled. ACM were able to decrease the amount of general waste created by assisting in separating this waste correctly, ensuring that materials that could be recyclable were not being mistaken as non-recyclable material.

By segregating the waste correctly, this naturally increased the amount of recyclable and reusable materials on site. With the abundant volume of recyclable material, waste compaction technology was required in order to improve the containment of waste, preventing wind scatter and the attraction of unwanted creatures. Using ACM’s waste management equipment has helped Crystal Peaks Shopping Centre to store their dry mixed recyclables in their optimal form, increasing their processing value. ACM were able to source the closest recycling outlet as well as ensuring the material was presented in the most valuable form possible to ensure Crystal Peaks were receiving the highest rebate figure.

By managing Crystal Peak’s waste operation efficiently, ACM were able to assist in almost tripling Crystal Peak’s recycling rate from 33% to 89% within 12 months.

The results

Taking baling to the next level

Since the ACM was initially introduced into Crystal Peak’s waste operation, new changes have been implemented in order to improve site in general. Within 12 months. ACM were able exceed Crystal Peaks’ original target of reaching 60% segregation rate and increasing it to 89%. Even though ACM have met the original requirements of Crystal Peaks, they have not stopped trying to decrease the carbon footprint of the shopping centre. After identifying the issues on site as a whole, Crystal Peak’s next challenge is to focus on the smaller aspects within the shopping centre in order to improve segregation further, such as the food hall.

Crystal Peaks have begun to recycle materials which most facilities would not dream about recycling, such as coat hangers and plastic bottles. ACM’s compaction equipment has opened up a multitude of possibilities for recycling with the incentive of collecting rebate from these good deeds. In 2017, Crystal Peaks were awarded Environmental Champions under the Greener Path Award proving to the world that Crystal Peaks are making a real environmental difference and making steps towards the circular economy model.