Environmental Business Products wins best performing newcomer

Howard Lake | 20 December 2006 | Newswire

EBP BEST PERFORMING NEWCOMER AT THE MAYOR OF LONDON’S GREEN PROCUREMENT CODE AWARDS 2006
London Mayor Ken Livingstone presented Environmental Business Products (EBP) with the Best Performing Newcomer Award in recognition of its exceptional recycling and green procurement achievements at a ceremony held at City Hall last week. EBP was also one of the companies shortlisted for the ‘Going the Extra Mile’ Award.
Environmental Business Products (EBP) is Europe’s largest recycler of inkjet/laser cartridges and used mobile phones, raising almost two million pounds to date for charities such as Tommy’s – the Baby Charity, Guide Dogs for the Blind, Christian Aid, Goats for Africa, Save the Children UK and the British Heart Foundation, as well as for schools, councils and NHS Trusts. In addition to its charitable donations, EBP diverts significant levels of materials from landfill through its recycling and green procurement activities.
We are delighted with this award”, said Pat Stead, EBP’s Chief Executive as it is recognition not only for preventing many millions of printer cartridges and mobile phones from being discarded in landfill which is our core business, but for ensuring that as a company we purchase recycled/environmentally friendly materials wherever and whenever possible and as such we are walking our talk”.
Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: There are increasingly fewer reasons not to purchase recycled products. Increased demand generated by environmentally responsible companies has led to a range of high quality and value for money products on the market. The awards provide an ideal opportunity to recognise the outstanding achievements of companies across London in creating a sustainable city for the future.”
The Mayor also announced that those who have signed up to the Mayor’s Code have diverted 394,453 tonnes of waste from landfill by choosing to buy recycled products in the past year. That’s enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall four times and includes 35,550 recycled printer cartridges – just imagine if all of that had ended up in a landfill site, rather than being recycled.
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December 2006
For more information on EBP, visit www.inkagain.co.uk, call Pam Fenton tel. 01494 718502, mobile 07751 580510, or email Pa*******@pf**.biz. For more details about inkjet recycling schemes, call FREEPHONE 0800 435 576
Note to editors
The Mayor of London launched the Mayor’s Green Procurement Code in June 2001 to assist London based organisations in identifying opportunities to purchase products manufactured from recycled materials. The programme is delivered by London Remade and funded by the LDA to develop markets for recycled products, raise the profile of recycling and develop markets for recycled materials.
EBP’S RECYCLING AND GREEN CREDENTIALS
Charity supporters are invited to donate suitable empty inkjet/laser cartridges and unwanted mobile phones, which are recycled free of charge. Freepost collection bags are available to order online and used to return mobiles and small inkjet cartridges, whilst large collection boxes are provided for users of laser cartridges or those with larger numbers of cartridges such as businesses, colleges and hospitals. Charity shops, schools and civic amenity sites across the UK also hold collection boxes.
The recycled cartridges are remanufactured into high quality products retailed at competitive prices, demonstrating the potential to turn waste into an economically, environmentally and socially viable business. The Recycler Magazine recently placed EBP as the number one company in the global remanufacturing industry and the Which? Report (1 February 2006) rated the products as ‘Best Buys’.
In addition to its core business activity, EBP actively seeks to reduce the environmental impact of its operations. Focusing on its largest source of waste, the company is working towards zero waste to landfill (EBP has recycled more than 60 tonnes of packaging materials to date).
Last year the company worked on sourcing an output for the low quality cartridges, which are unsuitable for reuse and ultimately end up in landfill. In September 2005, a partnership was formed with Reco-Vie recycling to develop markets for recycled plastics. Using technology from Austria, Reco-Vie separates the constituent materials and part-processes the plastic into fence posts and bollards. The first collection was made in April 2006 and thousands of tonnes of plastic waste are expected to be diverted from landfill as a result.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.