The Client

Methodist Homes (MHA), founded in 1943, is now the largest charity care provider in the UK. It provides care, accommodation and support to more than 18,500 older people – of all faiths and none – thanks to the commitment and dedication of its 7,500 employees and 5,000 volunteers. It runs 88 care homes, with almost 5,000 residents, stretching from South Lanarkshire in Scotland to Aberystwyth in Wales and to Cornwall in the south west of England; 69 retirement living schemes across the UK ranging from apartments to buy or rent to apartments for couples where one is living with dementia and needing extra care and support, and 45 community services, supporting over 10,500 older people living in their own home through services such as online activities, trips out, lunch clubs, befriending, walking groups and exercise classes, all designed to help combat loneliness and isolation among people who live independently in their own home.

MHA’s operational ethos focuses on providing compassionate care and respect for each individual; nurturing a person’s body, mind, and spirit, and maintaining professional standards. All its care homes are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in England and Care Inspectorate Wales and Scotland.

The Challenge

One of MHA’s care homes – Westbury Grange, at Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes, in Buckinghamshire, which is specifically for older people living with dementia and those with general nursing needs – has some 45 residents in ‘small-group living’ and it encourages residents to continue enjoying fresh air and being outdoors. While this means guaranteeing safe access to outside areas, it also raises issues for the home’s storage of waste.

The home’s traditional, but far-from-ideal, approach to waste storage and disposal was to use a skip. However, this was unsightly for residents, visitors and the public. Moreover, fly tippers would make use of the skip – and other people would rummage through the skip looking for things to salvage, leaving the area ‘messy’. To complicate matters, some waste items – such as mattresses, fridges, paint and sofas – couldn’t be placed in the skip and had to be disposed of in ways that incurred extra costs.

Westbury Grange needed to find a simple, secure, cost-effective, discrete and discreet solution to its waste items’ storage and disposal. It also wanted to have only one point of contact for its waste disposal services instead of spending extra time and money on using waste disposal services from many suppliers.

The Solution

In search of a solution to meet all these criteria, Westbury Grange approached the collections, clearance and recycling company, Waste King. Waste King’s response was to instal one of its award-winning recycling pods at Westbury Grange in November 2022.

According to Waste King’s Operations Director, Andy Cattigan, “Recycling pods are perfect for slow moving sites that may only have a few exchanges per year or sites that are sensitive to space or image. Customers are only invoiced for what’s removed – and the recycling pod is only ever emptied at the customer’s request.

“Moreover, all types of waste can be placed in the recycling pod – including hazardous materials, paint, light bulbs, televisions, computers, fridges and even electrical waste that aren’t allowed to be put in skips. Not only is a recycling pod cleaner for, and kinder to, the environment than a skip but using a recycling pod makes it easier to segregate, and thus re-cycle, the waste.”

The Result

With a recycling pod that’s weather-proof and lockable, Westbury Grange soon found that fly tippers and ‘skip divers’ were no longer an issue for them to deal with. All waste items – even ones not allowed in a skip – can be placed in the recycling pod and then removed by Waste King. Moreover, under this system, the care home’s maintenance staff deal with just one supplier.

In addition, the home has discovered that, the recycling pod allows them to store old furniture in the pod rather than in the care home – saving space and, simultaneously, reducing the fire risk.

And, according to the care home’s maintenance staff, an added – and unforeseen – benefit of using the recycling pod is that complaints about waste are now non-existent.

Dean Campion, a maintenance specialist at Westbury Grange, said, “The recycling pod is a perfect solution to multiple issues of where to put unused, or not-required, items. Rather than dealing with lots of contractors, Waste King provides the perfect solution with their ‘recycling centre’ and one point of contact. Waste King’s friendly and professional and always there to support us with any issues, at any time. I’d highly recommend Waste King and their products for all types of solutions.”