To solve our rubbish removal environmental crisis, it is going to take partnerships on all levels. We need private citizens, charities, small businesses, large corporations, local government, national government, and governmental agencies to all come to the table, contribute, and collaborate. This type of cooperation makes rubbish removal solutions more successful and viable far into the future.
A really good example of this has been the “Tesco’s Bags of Help” grant giving programme and its partners. On the second day of February of this year (2018), they hit a major milestone. They funded their 10,000th community project across the UK! In London alone, they had funded around seven thousand five hundred community projects, many of them directly aimed at rubbish removal and others indirectly helping the rubbish removal crisis. In all, Tesco had provided £43 million to these projects (and more since then). In turn, this helped to spur many other business donations, government aid, charity aid, and thousands of volunteer hours by individuals moved by the collective effort!
One amazing project to come out the Tesco Bags of Help grant has been the transformation of an unused tract of land in the Franklin Square and Gibbs Green Estates of West Kensington on the west side of London. Creating this beautiful community park that both kids and adults are proud to utilize has had a multi-pronged effect on the neighbourhood. First, this was an excellent opportunity to clean the rubbish removal out of an abandoned area. Second, it deters future littering and fly tipping! Third, the fruit trees and other edibles they planted will provide food that does not come with any packaging that will end up at the landfill! Further, the Bags of Help programme is funded when people buy REUSABLE bags made from ninety-four percent recyclable plastic to replace their single use plastic bag habit!
For the park to be built, Tesco’s Bags of Help programme kicked in an initial £10,000. Then the Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s Housing Estates Improvement Programme donated another £25,000 and the council contributed another £18,000! This was all coordinated by the charity Groundwork London and could not have been possible without extensive help from community volunteers. This is a great example of businesses, government, charities, and citizens all coming to the table to collaborate on a sustainable green project, with a partial focus solving our rubbish removal crisis. Way To Go!!! We need a lot more projects like this!
Tesco is a household name in the UK and the third most profitable retailer in the world. So, this is a good example of a large corporation using its charitable wing toward a charitable rubbish removal project and other green sustainable projects. More importantly, Tesco is not doing these projects on their own, nor are they even attempting to do so. Instead, the Bags of Help programme is set up to actively seek out community partners in the private sector and public sector, as well as inviting individuals and charities to contribute as well. Collaboration is the key to success as the total is greater than the sum of the parts!
It’s heartening to see this type of collaboration on rubbish removal projects and other green projects that will make the UK and the world at large more sustainable. Part of this is driven by the changes we are seeing in the younger generations, especially as they gain an increasing influence on the economy and corporate profits.
The Millennials, also known as Generation Y, and the cohort right behind them, Generation Z, both seem to put a much higher value on businesses that demonstrate a social conscience about things like rubbish removal, green products, recycling, upcycling, reusing goods, fly tipping, littering, and global warming. Businesses have figured this out and are responding accordingly! The most successful businesses are recognizing it is in their own best interest to move toward more sustainable and socially conscience products, methods of doing business, and outreach to their customers.
Given the statistics on disposable income and spending habits among people of different ages, this trend toward being more socially responsible and sustainable should grow even stronger in the next couple of decades. The Millennials, born in the 1980s or early nineties, are now in their late twenties and thirties. Some are on the brink of hitting their forties. Some in Generation Z are already hitting their mid twenties. This means these socially conscience consumers are soon slated to become the majority in the mid-thirties to mix-sixties age bracket that is so highly coveted by marketers! This is because most people in this mid-life age bracket have more disposable income and spend more during this phase of their life!
Another statistic that bodes well for sustainable rubbish removal programs is the fact that the majority of new businesses are started by people in their twenties and thirties. As described above, people in this age bracket tend to be more socially responsible so we have more of a chance of our new business leaders having more of a social conscience about them. Here’s a great example of this:
Daniel Long started Clearabee about six years ago when he was in his mid twenties. Clearabee is a rubbish removal company has quickly grown to be the largest private on demand rubbish removal company in the UK, employing more than one hundred seventy five employees, all with a living wage certified through the Living Wage Foundation.
When Daniel Long started Clearabee, he not only saw a wide open business opportunity, he also envisioned a much more sustainable way of providing a rubbish removal service without the rubbish going to the landfills. He did not want the rubbish Clearabee collected to contribute to the greenhouse gasses spewed out at landfills and the toxins seeped into the environment.
Instead, Daniel Long and his Clearabee team have focused on diverting as much rubbish removal as possible from the landfills. Today, Clearabee has boasting rights on this issue because they divert a whopping NINETY PERCENT of the rubbish they collect from landfills, putting it instead into recycling programmes, reuse programmes, and even upcycling it, giving what was once considered waste removal renewed value!
To solve our rubbish removal crisis, we need more business leaders like Daniel Long and we need more programmes like Tesco’s Bags of Help grant giving programme. Most of all we need more collaboration among all stakeholders!
