Online system to overcome waste management?
With an ever-increasing array of concepts being put forth in a bid to tackle the issue of waste management, a new online management system has seemingly gained strong approval from large and medium-sized food and drink businesses.
In a recent survey, 67% of large or medium-sized food and drink companies who were questioned said they were keen to use edoc (electronic duty of care) – a free online system to record waste transfers that is being developed by the Environment Agency in partnership with the waste sector for roll out in January 2014. And more than half (55%) of smaller food and drink businesses said they too would be interested in transferring.
The introduction of edoc is expected to provide a modern, quick and easy alternative to the exchange of paper Waste Transfer Notes (WTNs) which all food & drink businesses across the UK have to fill out every time they dispose of any waste or pass it on to a waste carrier or contractor. The new system will save time and money spent filing, searching and retrieving waste transfer records manually, whilst also reducing paper and cut down on storage needs.
In addition, it will give companies in the food and drink sector easy access and the tools to interrogate their own waste data and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce waste and cut disposal costs.
Bernard Amos, CEO at Helistrat, which provides waste management services for a variety of restaurants and food halls, comments, “More and more we are moving towards paper-free ways of doing business and this makes perfect sense. It’s quicker, easier to trace and will help prevent fraud by removing the opportunity for people to take advantage of the revenue from waste. It will also be hugely time-saving. We have well over a quarter of a million paper WTNs that we have to scan and it will save our teams a great deal of time when it all goes electronic.”
On schedule to go live in January 2014, edoc is being developed under a four-year project co-financed by the European Commission (LIFE+). Use of the technology will not be mandatory, but the project partners hope that the benefits it offers will encourage businesses to make the move online.
