Waste workers cash in with recycling idea
Pair win top prize for their treatment of unwanted mattresses
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A NEW scheme to recycle unwanted mattresses looks set to save Dundee City Council more than £40,000 a year.
According to the council, around 30 mattresses are disposed of at the council’s recycling centres every day, which generate around 1,100 tons of waste.
Two waste management workers at the council’s Baldovie plant have come up with a way of separating the fabric covering from the metal springs inside.
They are now able to generate income from the scrap metal and reduce landfill costs.
Steven Ball and Douglas Fairfield submitted details of their idea to the council’s Cash in Your Ideas scheme, which rewards employees’ ideas for cutting costs.
Yesterday they were presented with the top prize of £500, which they have agreed to share with their colleagues.
Environment services committee convener Councillor Jimmy Black said: “I am delighted to see the level of interest Cash in Your Ideas generated among our employees.
“Going straight to the people who deliver our services day in, day out and see for themselves the council’s policies and procedures being implemented has proved to be a successful way of helping to make savings.”
The council has made 18 awards of £100, some of which are shared, to employees whose money-saving ideas will be implemented or investigated in greater detail.
The council estimates it will make initial savings of almost £100,000, a figure which is likely to increase once all the ideas have been fully investigated and implemented.
