R.M.S (Recycled Material Supplies) Ltd – Going for Gold

R.M.S (Recycled Material Suppliers) Ltd is Waste recycling company based in Silvertown in East London. Started up in 2007 we have managed to increase our fleet year upon year and we now have 76 lorries in total. We deliver a wide spectrum waste management and recycling to the construction industry and we work directly with the major construction companies. We’re proud to be FORS Accredited and put our names on it. Dominic Parkinson our Director is our elected Fuel and Emissions Champion and he explains how important FORS is to our Company’

We came across FORS when tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they fitted in perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact’

We take compliance and safety very seriously so we achieved our Bronze and Silver Accreditation for the first time. FORS did help us by providing training and tools that improved the policies and procedures’

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and improving our MPG. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures’

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety’ – Dominic Parkinson – Director

All our drivers have completed their Safe Urban Driving course. We have also invested heavily in vehicle safety systems cameras, we now have 4 way cameras fitted to all our lorries and offside proximity sensors including audible alarms for all our vehicles for when they are reversing or turning left. All our drivers have also completed FORS E-Learning modules.’

‘We have improved our MPG by 3.38% in the past 12 months compared to our baseline year’ – Dominic Parkinson – Director

• We have increased our fleet by 46% compared to our baseline year. We have also improved our MPG by 3.38% in the past 12 months compared to our baseline year. We achieved this by making sure we always selected the best route possible to all our sites and we plan ahead before leaving the yard

• We get all my drivers to complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration on a annually basis even though the FORS Standard states once every 5 years. It’s also mentioned in the drivers handbook that if they at any point in time start suffering from a medical condition they need to notify the company ASAP as well as if they need to start taking medication prescribed by their GP or over the counter drugs. We will then investigate it to see if it’s still safe for the driver to be driving for the company and we may even ask the driver to get a letter from his doctor informing the company if he is still able to drive for the company. We will then start doing more driver assessments on the driver to make sure he isn’t a risk to the company or anyone on the road.
• We’ve recently implemented a recruitment policy as we never needed one before. As we are a small family run company we always only employed driver who we knew and trusted. In our industry everyone knows each other, and drivers always move about between companies. We have only ever employed qualified and trained drivers. All our drivers have been with us for a few years now and aren’t leaving anytime soon. By implementing our new recruitment policy, we would look at employing a young driver and train him on our specialist equipment if any driver decides they want to leave or retire. By there is no plans for any drivers to do that anytime soon.
• We only have 2 Operators yards and they are both in an Industrial Estates in London. Our Charlton Deport is only used for parking our vehicles. Servicing is done at our Silvertown Depot for all our vehicles. As we are a waste recycling company we go to a site, load there and then go drop it at our Silvertown Depot. We use excavators and shovels to unload our vehicles. All our vehicles are fitted with White Noise Reversing alarms. The noise that is generated is mainly when done by our excavators and shovels when they are unloading our vehicles and moving the recycled materials around the yard. We start our vehicles and do our defect checks, drivers then leave the yard and the only noise then is when our yard staff are moving waste material around the yard. We don’t have any gates or shutters we open that make noise either
• We run a fleet of 32 tonne tippers, 32 tonne grab lorries, 32 tonne roll on/offs and 4 X 18 tonne Skips. We have looked at alternative fuels and alternative transport but after looking at the whole life cost of each vehicle, it isn’t cost effective for us to run Electric vehicles or using alternative methods of transport as trains etc. There isn’t any electric vehicles for our size lorries that has the correct equipment fitted and can pick up the loads we carry, we already use adblue in our lorries to help reduce our carbon footprint and improve our MPG.. 33% of our fleet currently have passenger side lower door windows fitted. We can’t use trains or barges to move our products as we don’t have the infrastructure to make it possible. Not all our sites are in London or near a canal or river and we don’t have access to railways and trains to do it either. We have increased our MPG from an average of 6.21 MPG across the whole fleet in our baseline year to 6.42 MPG in the past 12 months (which is a 3.38% improvement). So even though we don’t have any electric vehicles we are reducing our Co2, Nox and PM’s by actively managing our anti idling and route planning.

We will continue using what FORS has taught us to improve our MPG and reduce any wasted idling we might have.

Keeping our FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them.

Please note: All published FORS Gold case studies have been submitted by the accredited company named above and transcribed verbatim