R.M.S (Recycled Material Supplies) Ltd – Maintaining 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 83 lorries in total. We deliver a wide spectrum waste management and recycling to the construction industry, working directly with the major construction companies. We are proud to be FORS Accredited and put our names on it. John Garvey, our Senior Transport Manager 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 re-accreditation. FORS did help us by providing training, tools and advice 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 hone our administrative systems and procedures.

‘FORS has helped us improve our performance and compliance administration.’ – John Garvey – Senior Transport Manager

Most of our drivers have completed their Safe Urban Driving (SUD) course and all drivers have completed FORS E-Learning modules. Those new drivers that require an SUD course or whose SUD qualification is due to expire, are already booked on a 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.

‘We have improved our MPG by 2.50% in the past 12 months compared to our baseline year.’ – John Garvey – Transport Manager

• We have increased our fleet by 21.15% compared to our baseline year. We have also improved our MPG by 2.50% 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 our drivers to complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration annually, even though the FORS Standard states once every 5 years. It is also a requirement in the driver’s handbook, that if they at any point in time a driver is diagnosed with 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 is still safe for the driver to be driving for the company; we may even ask the driver to get a letter from his doctor informing the company if he is still able to drive for us. We will then monitor the driver’s performance and start doing more driver assessments on the driver, to make sure he is not a risk to the company or anyone on the road.
• We have recently implemented a recruitment program. We have never needed one before, as we are a small family run company. Historically, we always only employed drivers who we knew and trusted. In our industry everyone knows each other and drivers always move between companies. We have only ever employed qualified and trained drivers. The majority of our drivers have been with us for a few years now and are happy to continue working for us. By implementing our new recruitment policy, we would look at employing younger or less experienced drivers and train him on our specialist equipment, should a driver decide that they want to leave or retire. Currently, we have a stable complement of drivers and we encourage them to stay with the company.
• We have 2 FORS accredited Operating Centres (Silvertown & Charlton) and they are both in industrial estates in London. Our Charlton Depot is used by a smaller number of vehicles. Servicing is done at our workshop next to the Silvertown Depot, for all company vehicles. As we are a waste recycling company we go to a site, load there and then go drop it off at our Silvertown Depot. We use excavators and shovels to load our vehicles. All our vehicles are fitted with White Noise Reversing alarms.
• The noise that is generated, is mainly generated by our excavators and shovels when they are loading our vehicles and moving the recycled materials around the yard. Our drivers do their walk-round check, start their vehicle and then complete their defect sheet. Drivers then leave the yard and the only noise is when our yard staff are moving waste material around the yard. We do not have any gates or shutters we open that make noise.
• We run a fleet of 32 tonne tippers, 32 tonne grab lorries, 32 tonne roll on/offs and 18 tonne Skip lorries. We have researched alternative fuels and alternative transport but after looking at the whole life cost of each vehicle, range and charging capabilities, it is not cost effective for us to run electric vehicles. There are no current cost-effective production range extended vehicles either. Electric vehicles are not a cost-effective option for our size lorries, fitted with additional/ancillary equipment and can transport the loads that we carry. We are currently costing articulated bulk transporters with walking floors. We are currently authorised for 4 trailers on our operator’s licence and we are researching if the sites that we deliver to can receive articulated vehicles and their cost-effectiveness against 32 tonne tippers. We already use Adblue in our lorries, to help reduce our carbon footprint and improve our MPG. 42.17% 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 that option possible. We have increased our MPG from an average of 5.59 MPG across the whole fleet in our baseline year to 5.73 MPG in the past 12 months (which is a 2.50% 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.

Maintaining our FORS Gold Accreditation shows how invested we are as a company in working towards 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 safer for everyone that uses them.

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