Come out in the wash
When Co-Ordination Events Hire ’ s business completely dried up the 33-year-old family-run company had no choice but branch out . They expanded with an innovative approach to helping events become more sustainable . Director of Blue Planet Washing Solutions Jenna Goode-White told EN that the shift has been a great decision
Explain the background of Blue Planet ?
Blue Planet was formed off the back of Covid-19 . Co-ordination kind of fell off the side of a cliff . But it gave us the chance as a company and as a family to stop , regroup and diversify .
Events need to move into being more sustainable . We can ’ t carry on in this throwaway society . There ’ s definitely been a shift . We want to make a change and be right at the front of the circular economy . So we decided to invest in the machine and got off the ground last summer .
How does it work ? We are simply a washing facility . We have customers who approach us . They have the cups , with their branding or whatever on , and we organise the logistics and the washing and storage and redistribute to venues .
You can get hundreds and hundreds of reuses out of a container rather than it being thrown away into landfill .
The machine has capacity to do 8,000 to 10,000 cups an hour . We do 7,500 because everything is hand checked by eye . Quality control is a big deal for us . That ’ s what we ’ re proud of .
Jenna Goode-White
Blue Planet ’ s cup washing
What about water usage ? We invested in the most efficient , top quality machine you can get on market . It ’ s made in Germany by a company called Meiko . It was the first one that landed in this country . We think we ’ ve invested really well .
The water gets reused . The cups go through a pre-rinse , a wash and a rinse . But the water it uses for wash and rinse it takes back round for pre-rinse .
Because it ’ s a family business we care . We ’ re not huge , but we really do care about our customeRs and that ’ s how we want to stand out .
How do you see the future for events ? The future ’ s really exciting . We can ’ t keep using single use plastic . We ’ re starting this journey and feel like we ’ re on the cusp of that . It ’ s got to stop . We ’ ve all got to change . I want us to be part of that .
Moving forward we want to have another machine , electric vehicles and solar panels .
We speak to so many people at exhibitions who tell us they are sustainable , but there were still big bins full of coffee cups . There is so much more that can be done and we provide a very simple solution .
All elements of the back end of running an event is a waste . It ’ s working with the waste companies to look at the bigger pictures . EN
May — 27