Teamwork as Reconomy and Apleona HSG FM UK collaborate on a solution for essential staff at Northern Gas Networks

Reconomy leapt into action recently to enable facilities management company, Apleona to ensure that essential workers at Northern Gas Networks were able to continue their jobs safely.

NGN maintain commercial and domestic services across the North East of England, Yorkshire and Cumbria. Their First Call Operatives respond to home emergencies and are put at risk as they have to enter residences that have potentially been contaminated with COVID-19. NGN needed a solution for the disposal of the PPE worn by their operatives, and they needed it fast.

The fact that PPE needs to be double-bagged and stored for 72 hours to allow the virus to die, in line with Government guidance, meant that the usual scheduled collections wouldn’t suffice.

Apleona reached out to Reconomy, who managed to arrange a contingency plan for the waste in a matter of days, allowing the NGN depots to hold their used PPE and dispose of it on an ad-hoc basis whenever they request. In total, twenty-four 1100l bins were delivered to twelve depots, enabling one to be filled and marked ready for collection in 72 hours, whilst the second functions as the ongoing bin.

This was a triumph of teamwork, as Alan Jamieson at Apleona explains: “We needed a way to meet the objectives of NGN in a very short time-frame, helping them to keep their people safe. We discussed the waste management challenge with Reconomy on the 24th March and by 30th March we were up and running across all depots. I think this is just a great example of collaboration in difficult circumstances to make sure that our client’s essential services are able to continue. Everything is going well at the moment and we’re very pleased”

Jon Cox, Customer Services Manager at Reconomy, said: “We’re delighted we were able to support Apleona and their customer, NGN in this situation. Reconomy’s extensive supply chain means that we are well set up to find specific solutions when the deadlines are tight. We’ve got an important role to play in supporting key workers with waste management needs during this crisis, and this is another example of that in action”.