The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued a reprimand to a local authority in respect of a breach of Article 5(1)(f) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation. The local authority had included a spreadsheet in its response to a Freedom of...
Here at Bell Lax we are aware of the effects our business has on the environment and so we make every effort to reduce the amount of waste we produce.
Water
In the UK we needlessly waste 310 millions of litres of water every working day. At Bell Lax we make sure we do not waste any unnecessary water by regularly checking our water meter to make sure there are no leaks in our system.
Power
We reduce the amount of power we waste by switching all electronic equipment and lights off at the end of the working day and computer monitors when not in use. For our hot drinks, we have an instant boiling water system which is more energy efficient than kettles. We use mugs and tinned coffee/tea and not disposable cups.
Paper
Approximately 60-80% of office waste is paper. Due to the nature of the legal world, we are unable to become paper free but we have reduced the paper we use. We only use sustainable paper and we only print necessary items. Any items that can be printed double sided are and we recycle files, ring binders, file dividers and plastic wallets whenever we can.
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Any paper that is no longer required is sent to be recycled through the Iron Mountain Group rather than be disposed of as general waste. Our office manual is available to all staff electronically.
Cartridges
Did you know that more than 1.1 billion inkjet cartridges are used annually around the world and laid end to end this would be 129 times as long as the Great Wall of China? At Bell Lax we make sure all our printer and toner cartridges are recycled via "Reclaim" and we have a separate bin for our aluminium cans.
Electronic equipment
Electronic and electrical equipment waste is growing faster than any other type of municipal waste. So we do not add to this growing problem we make sure any broken electronic equipment is disposed of through an approved disposal company.
Past Events
One Bin Day 
John Barrowclough from Envirowise, Ashley Blake from BBC Midlands today and the cameraman who filmed all the action on One Bin Day.
In February 2007 Bell Lax took part in one bin day, a national scheme run by the government agency Envirowise. On 21 February all the bins in the office were removed and the whole office had to put all their waste in just one bin. This was to demonstrate to all of us, the amount of waste our office created in one day. One Bin Day was a great success for us, all the staff became aware of how much waste they created and we were featured on BBC Midlands Today and in the Sutton Coldfield Observer raising everyone's awareness to reducing waste.
John Barrowclough from Envirowise, Ashley Blake from BBC Midlands today and the cameraman who filmed all the action on One Bin Day.
Future Events
- Developing an Environmental Management System
- Insertion of water displacement devices to reduce the amount of daily water wastage by one fifth.
- Becoming Carbon Neutral
