Clare County Council and the SkyCourt Shopping Centre:

The SkyCourt Shopping Centre is the heart of Shannon Town; it’s a busy centre with over 50 retail units, 2 of which are supermarkets, footfall at the centre is busiest at daytime during the week The Centre is a popular lunchtime destination for employees of the nearby Shannon Industrial Estate for shopping as well as to eat.

The aim of this initiative is to improve waste management throughout this busy shopping centre as well as to investigate opportunities for waste prevention in the supply chain. Prior to getting involved with the project the Facilities Management of the Shopping Centre were segregating cardboard and plastic film for recycling but there was still a large dependence on landfill – in fact this accounted for 74% of all waste.

An extensive waste audit; analysing waste from each of the individual retailers was carried out in November 2006. This was a very useful exercise as it clearly identified the different waste streams for example it found that 31% of all waste arising was organic waste from the numerous food outlets in the centre.

An improved waste management system was implemented in the centre in August 2007; this includes the rollout of a third bin to retailers to collect organic waste separately as well as an improved collection system to capture more dry recyclables.

A review of waste arisings in March 2008 shows that the new system is working well: 15% of organic waste is now diverted from landfill and converted instead to compost for re-use in the agricultural industry. Recycling rates are also up from 26 to 38% - a 12% increase in 6 months; a very significant improvement showing the importance of participation by all retailers in the centre.

The retailers have engaged very well with the project and work is now underway to investigate further opportunities for waste prevention with suppliers to the centre.

A customer awareness day was also held on May 29th 2008 to ensure that customers were informed of the project as well as how they can also engage in waste prevention.