Stephanie Wiechers: You're listening to The Data Edge, the podcast for facilities, construction and infrastructure teams who are ready to get time and money back with their data. I am Stephanie Viehers. Today I'm talking to Mike Annett, sales director at SLM Waste Management, and someone who spent years on both sides of the FM services world from BIFA to boutique, watching how waste contracts actually get bought and sold. Mike's perspective on what facilities teams miss. when they're not looking at their waste data is actually exactly the kind of thing ⁓ this show exists for. Welcome Mike.

Mike: Thank very much. Welcome.

Stephanie Wiechers: ⁓ so today I'm gonna be asking you a couple of questions. and you told me a really, really fun story earlier. So I'm definitely hoping that you will share that with the listeners too. but before we go there, so of course this podcast is about data, and data exists everywhere, right? In our reality. It's actually just writing down the things that are happening in

Mike: Okay. Okay.

Stephanie Wiechers: in our business. so most procurement teams don't necessarily think of waste as ⁓ like a managed spend category, just as something that exists, it's a contract that renews. From where you sit, what does that that look like in practice?

Mike: So data for me when I'm looking at waste management, if I'm taking over an existing contract or an existing service, it's understanding basically what they have on site, who the current incumbent contractor is, the sort of services they're providing. And hopefully the incumbent has been providing a ⁓ range of data to that client. Now that can be... data on how many bins they've got, to how much they weigh, to how they fill those containers, what sort of waste they are generating, and how we can then manage that if we can manage it better, if we can be a bit more efficient on how they're having their services done. So it's gaining all of that data from the client first before we can even start to think about taking over.

Stephanie Wiechers: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what does managing better then mean? Is that cheaper? Is that faster? Is it ⁓ higher recycling rates?

Mike: So for me, well there's three different things there really. One is service, two is to increase their recycling, and the other one is we don't put anything into landfill. We're a totally zero landfill business. So we want to recycle as much as possible. If we can't recycle it then we'll find an alternative. Those alternatives can be anything from reuse. So if we've got computers and things like that then we'll try and find an alternative for them. can they go to schools, can they go to hospitals, things like that. If they can't be done that way then we'll find an alternative to actually recycle component parts. If we've got other things that we can do to reuse them, there are other companies out there that we can reach out to that can then donate items to third world countries. So we work with another company that does furniture to Africa and things like that. And if we can't do that and the only alternative is that it can't be recycled, then the alternative for us is a waste to energy source. It's not an ideal situation, but it's certainly better than landfill because you're generating electricity. which is then going to the UK market. So we're powering homes from waste that people are throwing away.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah. Yeah, so that's the basically burning waste and you get energy back while doing it. Am I correct? Yeah. And so you deal with a quite broad array of of waste types, right? Can you can you walk through that a bit?

Mike: Correct. you Yes, I mean over my years I have dealt with your normal office blocks so they just have your wheelie bins for general ice, your mixed recycling and occasional food. We also do confidential data destruction. Now that can be paper, that can be hard drives. I have also worked with fruit pack houses. So if you look at a fruit pack house They'll always have some element of waste where fruit gets dropped on the floor or on occasions when a container comes over from abroad or a truck comes over from abroad. Unfortunately, we do get people that stow away on those trucks and unfortunately because they've stowed away in the back of a truck full of food, that container then has to be destroyed. So you can't actually segregate a part of that because you don't know where the people have been within that container. So what we've done in the past with that is actually we then use that as an animal feed. So that would go to a farm, go through a process and it would then go through as an animal feed and mixed in with hay leach and everything else which is very beneficial for the cattle that it goes to. I've managed carbel, plastics. I think you're probably alluding to the whale that I ended up doing off of Shearness Docks. ⁓ I had a phone call from the, I'm trying to think of his title, but he was the Port Harbour Master for the Shearness Docks and they'd had a ⁓ boat come into the dock and on the bow of it unfortunately was a whale.

Stephanie Wiechers: I am

Mike: run at that. Unfortunately you can't just put that back out into the sea, have to have it brought back ashore and you have to deal with it in that way. It's not...

Stephanie Wiechers: So this was a dead whale that that had like ⁓ in some wave managed to get on the ship, right?

Mike: Yeah, so if you look at the ball nose of the ship that's in the water, it had actually, unfortunately, beached itself on that top ball nose and unfortunately had died. don't think anybody had noticed it because we see a ship going through water all the time and not looking over the very far end and it wasn't till it docked that they noticed that there was this dead whale on the front of it. So the only way to actually do anything with it... We had to engage two divers who had to go into the water and strap it. We then had to hire a crane and that crane had then had to lift it. And we then had to actually find somewhere to lift it to. So we managed to find a remote area, beached area, which we then laid plastic on. We then put, lifted the whale onto this plastic sheeting. stood down the divers and the crane and we then had to hire a very well trained butcher and it sounds gross but unfortunately it's something you have to do but we then had to dissect the dead whale and then put it into a plastic lined container like a roll on roll off container which is a big like a massive wheelie bin but it's only got two wheels it's picked up by a special truck.

Stephanie Wiechers: How big are we talking here?

Mike: The container is probably about 20 foot long by 10 foot wide by about 12 foot high. So it's a big container. It's got a big barn door on one end and basically the Butcher had to then dissect this whale into manageable parts so there were probably three other people that were there that once it had started to be cut up it was then manhandled into this container. And once that had been done the plastic was then also loaded into the container and then that container was taken to a composting facility and the whale was then slowly decomposed into a compost.

Stephanie Wiechers: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike: Plastic was then put through a washing plant and then recycled.

Stephanie Wiechers: Okay. Okay. So you're still able to get those pieces out then?

Mike: Yes, because it was quite large plastic you could actually, so once it was all tipped out and put into their process, we could then separate the plastic, put it through their washing plot and recycle the plastic as well. It was a fairly large operation as you can imagine, it wasn't something that could be done in just one day, it was done over like a two, three day period. But we had to act fairly quickly obviously because of odour and also because...

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah.

Mike: The seagulls were quite interested. ⁓ They would have done eventually, but it was taking a long time. So we did that and the client was very happy. It was an unusual job, but we got there and we got it done.

Stephanie Wiechers: And they would have done it for you. Okay.

Mike: We've done all sorts of different jobs over the years. I've had one client who I used to, she was a fruit pack house and I managed everything for her for the whole site. So that would have been a cardboard, a plastic, a wooden pallets. Literally you name it we managed it and just they also used to wash some fruit and put fruit out into little plastic package and you could then go and buy it from your retail shops.

Stephanie Wiechers: Just the small cute little trays of fruit.

Mike: Sorry, say that again.

Stephanie Wiechers: Those small cute trays of fruit just a yeah.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like that. And one of things she asked me for, even though I was in waste management, she said, can you get me some peach pads? And I looked at her and said, peach pad? She said, well, you know when you buy your Sunday joint, if you buy some roast beef or something, she said, underneath the roast beef, there's a little pad that absorbs things. And I said, ⁓ yeah, I know what you mean. And she said, well, I need some for the water when we're doing the fruit. I said what's that got to do with base management? And she said well nothing but I come to you for everything else you can sort it for me. So yeah basically yes so I made a few phone calls I knew roughly where there was a company I thought produced them made a phone call and she needed

Stephanie Wiechers: Okay. You're a problem solver.

Mike: two dozen of each size and there were five sizes so I phoned them up and they said, yeah you can have those as a sample. So I went to this place, I obtained my free samples, the ladies that helped me out on there, I gave them all tins and boxes of chocolates as a thank you because it didn't cost me anything. I then drove them to the facility which is a pad of wood and said there you are and she went, see I knew you could do it.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah.

Mike: and I ended up providing her peach pads as part of a waste management process. I never had to recycle them or do anything with them, just provide them to her, but it was part of an add-on service that I did and kept the client very happy.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. that might be a good link to well, I mean, ⁓ I really like that. It's in the end we work for our clients, right? And so if we can help them, we'll do it. ⁓ we work a lot around procurement in facility management and and the story that you're describing doesn't fit that standard box. Because there's a lot around what are we buying and are we buying that in the smart, efficient way? Like are we not doing some last minute Amazon orders 'cause we needed gloves and they weren't in stock, etcetera. ⁓ is that something that you is that something that you ever work on, that you focus on?

Mike: I think for us, there's always an element of surprise in waste management because there's always something where they'll have an event in an office and then they'll have ⁓ excess waste that they have to get rid of and they don't always plan for it. So you'll then get the call saying, look, we've got all this extra waste, how do we get rid of it? And you can then either say, look, give me a separate PO. purchase order so we can manage that for you? Do you want to put it with your normal waste? How often do these happen? How can we plan this for the future? And it's trying to work with the client and understand what that client needs and how we manage that moving forward. And for me it's about relationships and I think if you're having the right relationship with the client because My saying has always been, and a lot of people will agree with this, is that people buy from people. So if you have that trust and that element of relationship with a client, no matter where you are, they'll come to you because they trust you. And it's not about price. Price has a bearing on what you do, I understand that. But it's always about the element of service and trust. And I think if you've got that, then... you should be successful at what you do. I'm pricing up a job at the moment and I've already told the client I can't compete with the national company that they're using and he said I understand that but they're not performing therefore whatever I'm paying them isn't worth it and I said I agree and it is Procurement is about procuring the right level of service, not necessarily the right price, but it's how we take that information and the desire of that client, the next step, and how we can work with procurement. We need to work better with procurement. I know we've, I think, touched on the subject before where how can we engage with procurement so they actually don't buy that waste material. at the start. did a presentation many many years ago for a friend of mine who owns a waste scoop company and they, this presentation was to Tesco's. Now Tesco's when they do a refit or they have a new store have all these new fridge and freezers delivered. Now a new fridge freezer for them is £15,000 each. Now they might buy 30. but they come with cardboard, polystyrene, cling film, blue cling film, all the different packaging that comes with it. If you go and buy a nice Porsche car, that comes on the back of a truck with a bit of plastic on the door, a little bit plastic on the wheels, and that Porsche car might be £150,000. So there's no cardboard, there's no polystyrene.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mike: It's about understanding how you can change the way you have your deliveries done. So one of the things I said to them is leave the packaging material at source. So when they're being delivered, don't have them delivered as you would normally have them delivered. Go the old-fashioned route. Go to a removals company who would then deliver them to you and they'd be wrapped in a blanket. You you move house and they take all your worldly goods and they put a blanket over it and strap it down. do that ⁓

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah. They use the packaging material as an asset rather than a disposable. Yeah.

Mike: Yes. So leave the materials with the supplier, don't you take the relationship or the ownership, the onerous ownership of the waste material that comes with the package. Amazon are doing that now because you don't have as much packaging and some, a lot of parcels come now without any outer packaging at all. It comes with the box as it was with just a label stuck on it. So they're doing it and that's the way it should be.

Stephanie Wiechers: Which is great. I mean if if it comes here in into my house, then I'm also happy there's no additional packaging, right?

Mike: Yes, exactly. But that's the way we should be working more with procurement in the waste industry so that we can help them reduce the amount of packaging that they're getting.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah. Have you, ⁓ when we're speaking about okay, what are these components and what can we do with it, is that something that you need to track? Do you need to say these are the percentages of everything that we process, that we recycle, that we use for energy generation, that we can send like for reuse?

Mike: We do do reports so the report will actually give most companies will provide weights for the material that they're collecting now and with the new legislation that's in say you have to separate your general waste, your food waste, mixed recycling and it is going to change again in 2027. So you'll separate glass with tin and so you will have weights for all of that and we can then say well okay your cardboard and paper weighs this, your general waste weighs that, your mixed recycling weighs this, your food waste is that, your glass weighs this, that's all recycled. So 85 or 90 % of what you generate is now recycled, 10 or 15 % is actually now going to hopefully a what we would call a material recycling facility. because there will be stuff that's left in that 15 % that could probably still be recycled but they won't know how to do it or that it's in a small quantity. So when it goes to a material recycling facility or what I would call a MRF, that will then be sorted normally by hand by people running on a conveyor belt and they'll pick out stuff that can be recycled. So by doing that you're increasing your recycling even more and we can then give you a percentage of what that material recycling facility is doing and say well okay they've got 100 tonnes of waste going into that facility as an average they're taking 85 % of that out only 15 % of that is going as waste to energy so knowing what I've got going there as a weight I can then say well 85 % of that weight is recycled 15%.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah.

Mike: is only what's going into waste to energy. And that way you can then generate a good idea on a report how much is actually being recycled and what isn't.

Stephanie Wiechers: Okay. And so how do you track that? 'Cause this doesn't happen once, right? This happens a lot, like a hundred percent goes in, eighty five percent gets recycled. Do you have a smart way to collect that data and and to track that?

Mike: ⁓ yeah, it happens. ⁓ Unfortunately the only smart way is the information we receive from the people that we use. So they'll send me a report telling me what they've done and from that report I will then, unfortunately manually, convert that data into what I call data that the client will then understand.

Stephanie Wiechers: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so you you track you get the reports, you manually put them I guess into a spreadsheet that is your master database. Yeah. has there anything ever been where you're like, okay, this is smart? Like where you learned and where you realized if I track the data in this way, that helps me a lot in generating the reports.

Mike: Yes, it's all like spreadsheets, yeah. There are a couple of systems that are coming out coming out which I haven't, I'm going to be really honest, I haven't looked at yet and that's my fault because of time. There probably are things out there that we could probably utilise. There are smart bins out there, there are data apps that are out there. and it's making sure that one, should be using them. Are we using them? No. ⁓ Is anybody else using them? Possibly some, but it's not a well-known system yet, but it's coming. I think smart bins are definitely on the way in, and I think it's about time we did it.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yeah. Yeah, I mean sm smart bins and sensors ⁓ make a lot of difference, right? 'Cause it has this automatic data point. As for the rest, it's always about what's the value that it delivers to you. Because w in the end we can track anything and just recording loads of data just gives us more data to deal with, but we do need to have a goal in mind. And we need to have a an and like end on our horizon to

Mike: Yeah. Yes.

Stephanie Wiechers: To say this is what we're working towards.

Mike: Yeah, I think the industry has changed hugely from when I started many years ago to where we are now and it's all for the good. Some of the characters have gone but again I would say that's definitely still for the good.

Stephanie Wiechers: Well I think that's a good note to to end on here. Mike, thank you so much for that. ⁓ I loved hearing the whale story again. And I think we can best summarize this as like, of course, data is important. It's it's foundational to all of the reporting that we do. But the one thing that's really important is that we keep in mind who are we doing it for.

Mike: My pleasure.

Stephanie Wiechers: ⁓ we're working with people and we're in the end all here to make the people we work with happy.

Mike: Yes. Yeah, and I think also the ultimate thing is we're trying to do something that's better for the planet and as long as we're doing that and we're doing what we can to improve the environment then so be it.

Stephanie Wiechers: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, and so if you are tracking what you're doing for the planet, ⁓ then of course you need to do that well, where we do need our data to be able to make the right decisions going forward from that. Fantastic. ⁓ no data, no classification, no feasibility. if anything around data sounds familiar, then ⁓ that is what pair stop fixes.

Mike: We do. Yeah, perfect.

Stephanie Wiechers: for any listeners. But ⁓ for now I just wanna thank you again, Mike. ⁓ and

Mike: My pleasure.

Stephanie Wiechers: See you later. And to the listeners, see you next week. Bye bye.

Mike: See you soon. Okay, thanks then. Bye.