Market Place is thrilled to announce it has won a Green Apple Environment Award for its Biohitech Digester. Judges from several independent bodies recognised Market Place as leading the way in its sustainable practices.
The Green Apple Environment Awards were launched in 1994 by The Green Organisation and have become well established as one of the most popular environmental campaigns in the world. Their philosophy is to help others, help the environment. Market Place competed against a huge number of other nominations and will be presented with their Green Apple Award at a presentation ceremony at The Houses of Parliament, on 25 November 2019.
The award recognises that Market Place is committed to continually improving its environmental performance and moving towards the best practices in corporate sustainability. The re-development of the centre’s Grade 2 Listed Victorian Vaults into 30,000 sq. ft. of restaurants required that the loading bay was reduced by 50%. As a result they had a very restrictive space for processing additional food waste efficiently and environmentally. Identifying their food waste strategy for the future, followed by recommendations to the CEO were necessary to ‘reserve’ space in the Vaults for food waste processing. The decision to use a ‘Biohitech Digester’ was the catalyst to launch the project.
This confirmed their decision to marry the latest ‘state of the art’ digester technology to their historical ‘Vaults’, delivering a ‘behind the scenes’ food waste disposal process, which was both achievable and sustainable. Visits from other centres have resulted in further investment in this process. By introducing ‘Debbie’ the digester (the digester was named ‘Debbie’ by staff) operational costs have reduced significantly thanks to reductions in transport, housekeeping and food minimisation.
Nikki Wilson-Cook, Centre Manager, Market Place says, “We are very grateful and proud to have won this award but we are in no way standing still with this success: it has generated momentum in the team to strive to tackle other waste streams and ensure recycling or segregation is done in the most sustainable and efficient way. Opportunities have been identified and training is underway to make more necessary changes. We want to inspire others to think about how they use items and most importantly, how they dispose of them.”