It’s fast-approaching the holiday season and we want to give you all the information you need to make the most of us. Use the following information for a day-by-day breakdown of how Chemtech will be operating for the final few weeks of 2024 and into 2025.

Click here to see our opening arrangements for 2024-2025: https://www.chemtech-env.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Christmas-New-Year-Arrangements-Chemtech-2024-25.pdf 

 

We’re super excited to announce that our illustrious Technical Director, Will Fardon, has been awarded the AGS Laboratories Working Group Award 2024 for his ‘invaluable work and ongoing contributions demonstrated to the Association of Geotechnical and Environmental Specialists.’

Will is delighted to have been recognised by the Association. He is happy to share his 20+years’ of experience in environmental analysis with the wider group.

He has worked with both public and private sector organisations in the delivery of multiple large-scale projects including national Water Company frameworks, the Environment Agency’s Chemical Investigation Program, large infrastructure projects such the Thames and Coventry Gateway developments, Thames Tideway Tunnel, Luton Airport amongst many others.

One of Will’s key areas of expertise is liaising with customers and colleagues prior to project commencement and throughout to look at appropriate application of analytical techniques and innovation to find cost effective solutions.

His broad knowledge of industry and legislative requirements along with access to modern analytical equipment means he can help define appropriate solutions to real world problems which has been acknowledged by AGS through this award.

Note: The AGS is a not-for-profit trade association established to improve the profile and quality of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.  The membership comprises UK organisations and individuals having a common interest in the business of ground investigation, geotechnics, geoenvironmental engineering, engineering geology, geochemistry, hydrogeology, and other related disciplines.

 

As an environmentally conscious environmental testing lab (easy for us to say), we are focused on becoming more environmentally responsible. Progress to date has been achieved in no small part through the work of our appointed ESG Champion, Gabriela Iacob, who has driven a ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ attitude to how we do things onsite.

It made sense to begin with focusing on efforts to reduce the amount of waste we produce; better not to have to reuse or recycle something that was not necessary to use in the first place!

 We’ve made fantastic progress to date:

Reduce 

• We now use refillable cleaning products throughout the site. We colour coded these for each department – leading to some eclectic shopping lists!
• Lighting has been changed throughout the facility to energy efficient LED
• Cold stores now have alarms fitted to ensure the doors are not left open, also helping to preserve sample integrity
• Electric kettles have been replaced in the staff areas with hot water dispensers to the annoyance of staff who have a bigger than average mug
• Paper usage has been reduced as we have moved to more automated and electronic for data processing with the added bonus of fewer transcription errors.

Reuse 

• We have joined a scheme through Sartorius so that our old pipettes can be used for spare parts as opposed to them being fully recycled

 Recycle 

• We are tremendously proud to have joined a plastic recycling programme through Elkay. This has been a real labour of love as there’s high potential for contamination; but through this programme over the last year, we have collected and recycled over 750kg of plastic waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill – an incredible volume!
• We have expanded what we are capable of recycling onsite to include batteries, printer cartridges and even old vapes (this is not an invitation to start sending these in with samples)

 Special Project 

A day was organised (and then reorganised a few times because of terrible weather) to plant a wildflower meadow onsite; providing bees, butterflies and other pollinators with food throughout the year. On a single day in summer, one acre of wildflower meadow can contain 3 million flowers, producing 1 kg of nectar sugar. That’s enough to support nearly 96,000 honeybees per day. We also purchased a birdfeeder to attract more wildlife on site including a variety of birds and a cheeky squirrel or two.

 

As the end of 2023 draws near, we’ve made our State of the Nation Survey live; designed to garner thoughts from the industry about what next year might bring.

We’re not expecting you to gaze into a crystal ball, but we’re sure you’ll have a few thoughts about the current state of the industry and the challenges that might present themselves in 2024. If we get enough responses, we’ll publish findings and drop a few thoughts into social media across January.

The survey will remain open until 5 January, so we hope you find a sometime to participate.