Rainsborough & Sons Landscape Gardeners

Always passionate about environmental issues, proprietor Ian Rainsborough invested in equipment to make his landscaping business one of the most environmentally friendly operations around.

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On the surface, Rainsborough & Sons was a success story, already managing to recycle up to 90% of all green waste and most of the heavy masonry,which consisted of broken concrete, stone slabs, old paving, walling stones and bricks. The problem was that these items were put in a skip and recycled off the premise. There had to be a better way.

The Exercise

Ian identified that the existing method of recycling, using a skip was inefficient and wasteful for a number of reasons, including cost , movements taken by the skip operator to deliver and collect to each site compounded by most jobs having multiple skips, the manpower and machine time effort required for breaking and moving the material to the skip.

Already owning a specialised mini-tractor, suited to the narrow access rear gardens, an investment was made in an mobile concrete crusher which could be used with the tractor and was capable of crushing 3 tonnes of concrete per hour.

The resultant material is used as hardcore for landscaping contracts, used on site where possible, saving the landfill, transport, loading and unloading costs.

Stretching Out

Rainsborough and Sons promote ethical trading and waste minimisation practices in order to set new standards of what can be achieved by the small works construction or landscape contractor.in all areas of environmental management

Water

Some of the more innovative designs include installing Sustainable Underground Drainage Systems which allow a client to have their own independent, underground “reservoir” from which to meet their grey water/garden irrigation requirements rather than using an increasingly expensive and wasteful mains supply.

These load bearing reservoirs replace foundations under a patio or driveway, cannot be seen and collect and store the equivalent of 50 water butts of water or more, ready for reuse.

Education

It is important to the company that their customers are aware of the company’s ethics and they seek to inform them of landfill issues and appropriate use of materials.

An example of this included recommending lawn treatments that reduce cuttings by 60%, promoting natural rather than man made materials in their garden designs and constructions.

Feeling the benefits

The figures speak for themselves in demonstrating that good environmental management is not just great for the environment but also profitability

• Trade Waste is reduced from 11% of revenue to currently only 3.06%, despite revenue increases of over 50% on last financial year
• Direct recycling rates increase from 30% to over 80%
• Waste changing from a cost line to a profit line, as it is utilised as a resource
• Over £10,000 a year saved in skip and material costs
• Up to 95% of existing garden waste is shredded or chipped; concrete and stone are crushed and reused on site, saving landfill, transport, skip and labour costs.

"I have long championed the environmental efficiency of Rainsborough and Son. We want to set the environmental standard in small works construction and landscape contracting."

Ian Rainsborough