Companies signed up to the Procurement Code used 188 million worth of products made from or containing recycled materials in the last year.
Award winners announced on Tuesday were:
- Most innovative organisation – London Fire Brigade
- Best performing public sector organisation – London borough of Croydon
- Best performing small to medium sized enterprise – Forum for the Future
- Best performing corporate organisation – Ford Motor Company
- Supplier of the year – M-real
It is believed that by far the largest proportion of the 188 million spent on recycled products was undertaken by Ford – possibly as much as 100 million.
Although the company is unwilling to reveal exactly how much it spends on recycled products for commercial reasons, the motor manufacturer said it had effectively diverted 21,000 tonnes of material from landfill through its purchasing policy, 4.5% up on last year's figure.
 Ken Livingstone with Ben Diggins and Dennis Jacobs of Ford and London Remade's Danny Silverstone |
A spokesperson for Ford said: “Products such as battery casings are made from 100% recycled material and around 7,000 vehicles roll out of our plants each week. That is a flavour of the magnitude of recycling that goes on. If you spend just 10 on recycled products per car, already there is a large amount there.”
Recycled content
As well as battery casings the company is also using recycled metal for parts of the engine and large percentages of the plastic will contain recycled material. Cast iron taken from end-of-life engines is also melted down to make brake discs. The company is also currently sending waste sludge from several of its plants to the cement industry.
Ford also sends computer equipment from its offices to UK Recycle IT. The company has said that the majority of its recycled purchases though are through the manufacturing side of the business.
The Green Procurement Code was launched by Mayor Ken Livingstone in June 2001 to assist London-based organisations in identifying opportunities to recycle waste and buy products manufactured from recycled materials. There are currently more than 450 organisations signed up to the code, which is run by London Remade.
Mr Livingstone said: “By buying recycled products, companies are closing the recycling loop. Recycling alone is simply not enough to address the capital's burgeoning waste problem and all aspects of the recycling process must be considered.”
Winners
Among the other winners announced at the ceremony in London on Tuesday, the London Fire Brigade was rewarded for its innovative activities, which diverted 88 tonnes of material from landfill.
Supplier of the year was paper mill M-real for their Evolve 100% recovered paper, which has effectively diverted 1,184 tonnes of waste from landfill.
The London Borough of Croydon won the public sector award for a range of steps both internally and externally to divert 13,000 tonnes of material from landfill. Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity set up by environmentalists Jonathon Porrit, Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins, took the prize for SMEs.
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