‘A modern facility to take us into the new era of waste management’

By Mat Stewart

With our third recycling site in East Anglia now fully operational, it feels great to stand back and really take in how effectively SunSkips is now serving such a large part of the region.

Building our first site from the ground up at Haverhill was a fantastic opportunity for SunSkips to flex our ability to deliver environmental excellence; a blank canvas on which to paint a clear picture of what a modern recycling site should look like.

SunSkips Haverhill is the result of a carefully considered strategy that just so happens to go hand in hand with our philosophy on sustainability and forward-thinking waste management practices and was absolutely the best next step for the business.

Why Haverhill?

SunSkips has been offering skip hire in Haverhill for some time.

The Suffolk town is within easy reach of our Cambridge and Stowmarket sites, but with such high demand for skip hire in the area – coupled with the rise in fuel prices and recent changes to red diesel legislation – expanding to Haverhill made a lot of sense.

A base in Haverhill allows us to offer better value skip hire to local residents because it takes less time and energy for our lorries to deliver and collect containers. It also gives SunSkips two sites either side of Cambridge (the other being in Cottenham), which helps with the often-difficult task of navigating around a city without a standard ring road. And if we need to go to the south of Cambridge, we can now be there much quicker.

Haverhill is growing rapidly as a town because of its proximity to London, yet there was no other skip hire company with a recycling site in the area, making it very attractive for SunSkips to fill the demand.

The new location not only allows us to more efficiently serve areas we were already covering, but it also opens up our unique brand of customer friendly skip hire in Braintree and Halstead – the first towns in Essex served by SunSkips – as well as Sudbury and Saffron Walden.

So, from a strategic point of view, Haverhill was the clear choice for the company’s next location. It fits perfectly with our efficiency strategy, where we want to be and how we want to work with other sites.

But despite the incredible opportunities Haverhill has opened up for SunSkips, the decision did bring a few fresh challenges to contend with…

Building from scratch

For prior sites, SunSkips acquired previously successful businesses and moved the SunSkips brand in, allowing us to take advantage of an established client list and the facilities left behind by the previous owner.

This is by far the easiest way to set up in a new skip hire location, but because Haverhill wasn’t being served by any recycling services based in the town itself, the only way for SunSkips to set up shop was to build a site from scratch.

Haverhill is SunSkips’ first completely greenfield recycling site. This is, of course, much more expensive, a longer route to market, and a bigger risk than the previous acquisitions – but we were prepared to invest the time and effort to deliver it.

The hardest grind is the amount of time it takes to get an environmental permit. It meant working closely with the Environment Agency, writing to the local MP… it takes more than 100 days even to acknowledge the receipt of the application and get it to one of their team!

Fortunately, SunSkips is dedicated to stringent environmental practices, so once all the forms were filled out, documents stamped, i’s dotted and t’s crossed, we were easily able to demonstrate that we had what it takes to meet their demanding criteria.

In fact, it was an exciting chance to put SunSkips’ high environmental standards to the test…

SunSkips all the way

Building a site from the ground up meant we could plan for efficiency right from the start, with all our streamlined processes and everything we’ve learned along the way in mind.

SunSkips Haverhill – designed and developed by Red Leaf Enviro – is a 95% concrete yard, which means more stability for our vehicles and containers, as well as better control over dust that inevitably builds up with so many skips coming in.

Image courtesy of Red Leaf Enviro

The 43,000 sq ft waste transfer site factors in the size of the vehicles we drive. A wide bellmouth entrance offers safe access in and out, with a large concrete pad sitting above ground level to serve as a strong base for the heavily loaded lorries to enter the site.

Drainage interceptors prevent contaminants polluting the sewage systems so it can be properly disposed of, while stormwater attenuation collects excess water run-off so it can be released slowly to reduce the risk of flooding and ensure the site meets Environment Agency regulations.

SPOTLIGHT: Red Leaf Group helps lay groundwork for SunSkips’ success

As a skip hire company that’s passionate about the future of waste management, SunSkips seized the opportunity to plan out a site that counts on the latest in recycling technology. It’s a modern facility to take us into the new era of waste management. All the equipment installed at the site was carefully selected to be as efficient as possible, future-proof, and highly sustainable.

Honestly, you don’t need to be an environmental buff to see the benefits of recycling as much waste as possible (although I would argue that a keen interest in protecting the planet does help in this business) because the fees for sending waste to landfill are astronomical (which is reflected in the value for money we can offer).

MORE: Why you should care about SunSkips’ commitment to sustainable waste management

Acquiring sites is simpler, but it takes a lot of work and problem solving to get them working as efficiently as fresh SunSkips sites – because while you get a lot of benefits from a yard that’s already up and running, you also assume a lot of the inefficiencies.

The success of SunSkips Haverhill is a testament to what we consider to be the key to the business’ growth moving forward. We’re very excited to begin this next chapter in SunSkips’ story and can’t wait to deliver even better levels of efficiency and customer service to the people of Haverhill.

SunSkips is excited to be able to reach more customers in East Anglia thanks to the success of this efficient growth strategy. Consult our skip hire locations to find out if  SunSkips’ great customer service is available in your area.