Background: Pharmacy Plus specialises in care home pharmacy services and medicines management throughout the UK and was the first pharmaceutical organisation to focus solely on the drugs management of residents within the care home sector. The Company is based in Bristol where it has the largest single dispensary operation in the UK. The Bristol sites, which cover 10,000m2, house the Company’s national call centre, teams of pharmacists, dispensing technicians and professionally trained operators to ensure it provides a leading national delivery service supplying regular and urgent medication to more than 25,000 care home residents. The Challenge: The nature of Pharmacy Plus’ business means it has an abundance of cardboard boxes and paper waste. Following a review to drive cost efficiencies, the company realised just how much ‘waste’ it was wasting and crucially that the current method of disposal was costing nearly £7,000 per year. The Company needed to find the best solution to reduce waste collection and landfill costs and make the disposal process more environmentally friendly. The Solution: Pharmacy Plus contacted one of the UK’s leading waste baling experts, Jonathan Oldfield at Riverside Waste Machinery. Jonathan visited their Bristol operation, carried out a site audit and worked with Pharmacy Plus to devise a bespoke solution for the organisation’s needs. Shortly afterwards Riverside’s engineers installed a RWM 400 Mill Size waste baleron a fully maintained rental contract. With its 25 tonne press force capable of achieving bales of up to 450kg, it perfectly met Pharmacy Plus’ needs and, despite the fact that the Company had never previously used baling technology, staff found it easy to use and an immediate asset. The Results: Steph Rawlings, Finance Assistant at Pharmacy Plus, was involved in the procurement process and explains that they were eager to see how the investment would reduce their waste costs. “The main criteria for the baler purchase was to increase efficiencies in the way we manage our waste and more crucially, reduce the cost of doing so. “The introduction of the RWM 400 Mill Size waste baler has most definitely done that. We are now producing one 400kg bale of cardboard waste every fortnight which also makes it easier to store the waste until it is collected” she continued. “We have realised a massive 83% saving on our previous collection costs – an estimated £5640 per year. This saving will grow even further as we’re already looking to actually sell our baled waste in the near future which will provide an additional revenue stream and increase the ROI of our baler even further. “The RWM 400 Mill Size waste baler is incredibly easy to use and if I could give advice to another company with a similar waste problem it would be – buy one! “It has been a real asset to us and we are going to save so much more in the long term.”
Pharmacy Plus saves thousands on waste collection costs
