Waste King helps gyms improve their fitness over waste disposal

Waste King, the waste collections and recycling specialist, has helped the well known health and fitness club, LA Fitness, to refurbish some of its gyms in the London area while keeping the disposal of the waste materials created in the process as environmentally friendly and as cost effective as possible.

LA Fitness’ multi-million pound project has involved Waste King in not only collecting and recycling materials from the LA Fitness gyms but also working with site managers at the gyms to develop a Site Waste Management Plan (SWMP). Waste King’s Glenn Currie explained: “Any project worth over £300,000 has to have an SWMP.

“The Environment Agency estimates that 10m tonnes of construction products are wasted every year, at a cost of £1.5bn. Much of this site waste is harmful to the environment and costly to contractors’ businesses.

“SWMPs are intended to help contractors manage site waste more effectively, reducing potential harm to the environment and human health,” he added.

“SWMPs help to manage and reduce the amount of waste produced by construction projects, which means less waste goes to landfill. Other environmental benefits of SWMPs include less damage to the local environment, less fly-tipping, lower energy use and greater use of recycled materials.”

Currie continued: “So, in the case of LA Fitness, we’ve logged the amount of each type of waste, identified where it has gone – especially in terms of being recycled – and identified the costs associated with disposing of each type of waste. This means that we – and LA Fitness – can account for how every piece of waste from this project has been dealt with.

“Devising an SWMP with a client and advising that client on its waste disposal strategy is a key part of our service – regardless of whether or not the project is large enough to require an SWMP by law,” he said. “Our clients are finding that adopting the principles and practices associated with SWMPs is helping them to be more ‘environment friendly’ – which is becoming increasingly important irrespective of legislation.”

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About Site Waste Management Plans

Site Waste Management Plans (SWMPs) are a legal requirement in England for all construction projects begun after 6th April 2008 which are worth over £300,000.

A SWMP sets out how resources will be managed and waste controlled at all stages during a construction project. It covers:
• Who will be responsible for resource management.
• What types of waste will be generated.
• How the waste will be managed – will it be reduced, reused or recycled?
• Which contractors will be used to ensure the waste is correctly recycled or disposed of responsibly and legally.
• How the quantity of waste generated by the project will be measured.

The benefits of using an SWMP are that it:
• Saves time – You can answer queries about your waste from your environmental regulator or local council quickly and easily.
• Helps you avoid prosecution – You can ensure all your waste is disposed of legally.
• Wins new business – You can prove your environmental performance, which can give you an advantage in the tendering process.
• Helps you understand and reduce waste disposal costs – You understand how your waste is managed so you can identify where to save money and reduce costs.
• Enhances your reputation – Your customers can see where you are helping the environment and making cost savings.
• Helps the environment – You will manage materials and waste on-site more responsibly so they are less of a risk to the local environment.
• Improves future projects – When your SWMP is complete you will have useful information for future projects about how you used resources and managed your waste.

About LA Fitness

LA Fitness is a health and fitness club offering gym membership, personal fitness training and exercise classes.

LA Fitness grew out of three clubs, each owned by one of the founders. In 1990, Fred Turock, Jeremy Taylor and David Turner decided to get together to jointly manage these clubs with the aim of building up a network of gyms with first class facilities.

In 1996 they created the LA Fitness brand and, the following year, they joined the top ten health and fitness club operators. In 1999 the growth and success of the LA Fitness group led to a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2005, LA Fitness joined forces with MidOcean Partners and exited the Stock Exchange. Since then it has bought the Dragon chain of gyms and now has more than 85 clubs and over 250,000 members all over the United Kingdom.

About Waste King Ltd

A specialist collections, clearance and recycling company, Waste King serves the domestic and commercial markets. It focuses not only on providing a friendly, efficient, cost-effective service but also one which is environmentally friendly. In particular, Waste King’s uniformed, Environment Agency-licensed staff take time to ensure that the maximum amount of waste can be recycled and that all the waste it collects is disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.

Waste King was formed, in 2007, by Glenn Currie and Andy Cattigan, who had experience in sales and IT respectively and were keen to ‘do something to help the environment’.

Further information from:

Glenn Currie,
Waste King Ltd, 01442 216784 / 07761 577001; glenn.currie@wasteking.co.uk

Bob Little,
Bob Little Press & PR, 01727 860405; bob.little@boblittlepr.com