Coolheat Blog

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The importance of reducing the impact our resource use has on the environment is by no means breaking news. But it is worthy of ongoing investigation and analysis, so we can continue to change how we do things, no matter whether it’s as a society, a business or as individuals.

The use of potentially harmful refrigerant gases has been in the news with the conviction of two Auckland men for illegally discharging an ozone depleting substance. There are clear rules in place for this work. All gas cylinders have a small reserve of gas that cannot be used; called the ‘heal’, these small amounts can quickly add up. Nowadays waste programmes enable this amount of gas to be shipped off to Australia where high temperature burners carefully dispose of the dangerous greenhouse gases.

While this is the most obvious of waste disposal issues facing the industry there are still a number of ways in which companies can reduce their environmental impact. Hartnell Coolheat is faced with a huge amount  of packaging with the delivery and installation of heat pump systems.

The company’s recycling bay has a cardboard disposal area that goes back to be reprocessed. Office paper use is also kept to a minimum with the reusing of printed material, first by using both sides and then by shredding and recycling.  A large drum is also now in place to collect all galvanised sheet metal and electrical wire waste. This is then sent of to a local scrap metal contact.

Company director Chris Hartnell sees it as a real win-win approach. “We used to be spending a decent amount each month with the filling of a skip. Now with the level of recycling going on and the use of scrap metal facilities, we’re actually having money coming back into the company for the team’s social fund.”

Tags: efficiency, Environment, recycle, refrigeration, reuse