• Question: Is your company environmentally conscious? In what ways?

    Asked by rattyvlogger to Graham, Luke, Maksim, Ruth on 23 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Maksim Schastny

      Maksim Schastny answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hello,

      Yes it is. Firstly, our company tries to minimize waste at all times and also pretty much everything we dispose off is being recycled. We have a service on site which specifically deals with correct disposal of card board. There is a number of blue bins around site which are emptied and sorted every day.

      Other waste such as electronics and computers are disposed through specialist companies. Our IT department collects all computers and breaks them down for parts. Then these parts are collected and recycled by those companies.

      It doesn’t stop here.. Each office has a special recycling bins where staff can place cardboard, plastic etc. Again, this is then sorted and disposed of correctly.

      It is very strange, but today I came back to my office to find that we now use 100% recycled paper for our printers 🙂

      As for more serious stuff i.e. radioactive sources which are used in experiments< we have highly controlled facilities which are targeted at correct extraction and disposal of radioactive waste. There is a team of people on site called Health Physics which are assigned a duty to make sure that it is done according to regulations and it is safe for environment.

      I hope this answers your question 🙂 Feel free to ask more if you interested

      Maksim

    • Photo: Graham Wiggins

      Graham Wiggins answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      rattyvlogger – back with another really good question !

      We/ STFC are aware of the effect we have on the natural resources we consume, and aim to reduce that.
      We have electric meters at every large load to monitor consumption, and are part-way through a mjor re-build of one of the oldest buildings on site. It’s getting lots more insulation, new high-“U” windows, and a new highly insulating roof. there’s light pipes to reduce the need for electric lighting in some areas.
      Any Scrap materials are indeed sorted on site, and then sold to a local scrap merchant who collects it.
      Cardboard/paper is compacted to make it smaller, so we can get more lightweight items on to the same sized truck, so less trucks = less fuel burn.
      We have a couple of experimental wind-turbines, with people looking into their design, and one turbine feeds ( a little power ) in to the grid.
      Our restaurant has lots of eco-features, as do all of our new-building. R92 for example has a lot of passive heating + cooling effects, aimed at making the heating bill as low as possible. It uses something called “Earth Tubes” to create naturally warmed airflow throughtout the building.
      Hope that helps,
      Graham

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      one of our key strategic Goals is to deliver a sustainable
      place transformation.
      much of this will be achieved by large-scale projects attracting investment and jobs, as
      well as through other infrastructure and environmental improvements we are delivering
      to make our communities more attractive in which to live and work.
      Between 2008 and 2011, we completed four environmental improvement projects with
      those at Bridgeton Cross and Rutherglen Station .
      The others were the Tullis Street memorial Gardens, which sit just a few hundred yards
      from Bridgeton Cross and the Calton Burial Grounds.
      Both projects were in response to demands from local residents and our efforts saw
      repairs to walls and fences, improved landscaping and new lighting. The work at Tullis
      Street was completed in October 2009 and at Calton Burial Ground in November 2010.

    • Photo: Luke Fry

      Luke Fry answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      can’t really beat Maksim and Graham’s answers there as we all work in the same place! I do know a fellow ex-apprentice from my year who is an electronics engineer and is working on a hydrogen power storage unit as well. I think that hydrogen power will play a huge role in the future of energy

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