Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulations (POPs)

THE NEW RULES FOR UPOLSTERED FURNITURE DISPOSAL

The way we manage disposal, and the processing of upholstered items here in the UK has fundamentally changed due to new legislation from the Environment Agency that came into effect from 1st January 2023.

Whilst the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulations (POPs) have been in place since 2007, the Environment Agency has now clarified that it will measure waste compliance against these regulations. The new regulations mean that upholstered office/commercial seating containing POPs cannot be disposed of in a landfill and must be incinerated.

This is a national regulation that will affect all commercial skip hires. Landfill sites will no longer accept upholstered seating, so office chairs disposal and the processing of other upholstered items will need to follow a new process.

This change in legislation has a big impact on many of our customers. Previously hiring a skip would have been an ideal solution for processing upholstered furniture or old sofa disposal. For general skip hire, we are recommending that no items that contain POPs are put in to avoid additional charges when it comes to processing the waste.

DID YOU KNOW?

Placing upholstered items in skips will contaminate the whole skip? This means that you have to pay for the whole skip by weight to be disposed of, instead of just the office chair, sofa, etc

Concentric AB, Redditch – EV Charge Points

We successfully installed new EV Charge Points for our long-standing clients, Concentric AB, based in North Moons Moat, Redditch.

The cabling works within the office were taken from the incoming main to the charge points via a dedicated DB and were completely concealed and traced through ceiling and wall voids giving a clean and tidy finish.

USS Steel, Halesowen – office refurbishment

After working with USS Steel, prior to the Covid pandemic, discussing refurbishment of their existing offices an opportunity arose for them to acquire the freehold of a neighbouring vacant office building.

ABC were instructed to carry a complete ground up refurbishment of the new site to include partitions new/remodelling, new solid timber doors throughout, decorations, floor finishes, kitchen and toilet refit, air conditioning, electrics/data/lighting, stair handrails, access control and window filming, a traditional full turnkey package.

ABC worked very closely with the USS management team who were an integral part of the works programme, a perfect partnership.

BWB Consulting Nottingham and Leeds

BWB is a multi-award-winning engineering and environmental design consultancy with multiple sites throughout the UK.

ABC were appointed to install two new office kitchens, one in Nottingham and the other in Leeds, both designed by creative interior designer NC Design, providing a fresh contemporary interior. Both kitchens were completely stripped out before receiving the transformation encompassing all trades including kitchen fitters, plumbing, electrics, decorators and wall tiling.

Works at the Leeds office also included stripping out the old 120 degree workstations and associated storage being replaced with existing workstations currently stored in the Birmingham office to provide more efficient bench style desking.

Lansalot Limited – IT, Redditch

Lansalot acquired a large open plan office which they propose to sub-let as smaller incubator/SME offices. Working to the client’s brief ABC Solutions installed sound insulated partitioning to work around existing ceiling mounted services (air conditioning, smoke detection, etc).

Oak doors and Muraspec contract vinyl wallcoverings gave a quality feel without exceeding the budget

Lodders Solicitors – Stratford-upon-Avon

Further works with our friends at Lodders included converting an existing open plan office space  into a meeting hub providing multi-functional collaborative furniture including sofas, booths and flexible table arrangements.

The works involved new flooring, decorations and installation of furniture.

To compliment the new Lodder’s branding programme ABC were instructed to reupholster various items of furniture, previously supplied, to bring them inline with the new branding programme.

Pashley Cycles, Stratford-upon-Avon

Pashley have been dedicated to hand-building high-quality bicycles and tricycles since 1926 and are proud to be the longest-established British bicycle manufacturer and one of only three remaining in the UK. Pashley also proudly design and manufacture the infamous ‘Boris Bike’ and derivatives for many local authorities.

As keen cyclists, ABC Solutions were honoured to be invited to review the refurbishment and remodelling of their R&D offices and workshops at the headquarter site in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The R&D function was temporarily relocated to allow walls and general layout to be remodelled and refurbished with new partitions, decorations, suspended ceilings and floor finishes providing a new fresh feel to the environment.

Mechanical and Electrical services were updated with new air conditioning, fresh air input, LED lighting and power supplies.

R&D Manager – The new R&D area you have created for us is fantastic and the design team are very happy in their fresh, new office!

Air Sterilisers – for commercial space

Working in association with Packaged Energy Solutions Ltd we like these state of the art commercial air sterilisers to help fill your space with fresh, clean and sterilised air.

Using medical grade dual technology, the units circulate and purify the air around you up to 8 times every hour. By sterilising the air the units kill 99.7% of bacteria and airborne viruses.

The world is changing around us. New diseases, new risks and a new focus on clean living means breathing purified air is more important than ever before.

Let’s not go back to the old ways of working!

Let’s not go back to the old ways of working, the pandemic has helped to give the fit out and refurbishment industry the time to think about where time may have been wasted in the past (travel for example) and has prompted efficiencies and better communications. We have to look at the positives, we will always value and need face to face contact, especially after it was so thin on the ground last year.

COVID has accelerated change for the good and it has forced us to embrace technology and evidence of increasing collaboration along the supply chain to the end user is a reason to feel optimistic that 2021 is the year to grow relationships and grow your business.

There will be new challenges this year, brought about by Brexit for example, but rest assured ABC Solutions will continue to support its clients just as much as it did last year, and the years before that.

Fulcro Engineering Services

Fulcro decided to take a positive from the current lockdowns and staff working from home to refresh their rural offices by replacing the carpets throughout the office, meeting rooms, kitchen and entrance lobby.

Several samples were put forward, deciding to go with JHS Glastonbury designer heavy contract carpet tiles.

ABC undertook to replace the carpet, advising Fulcro that the existing furniture, including the Christmas tree could remain insitu letting ABC’s team of fitters manage the process of uplift, latex and laying new tiles.

This takes away the worry of dismantling or moving furniture and ensures that minimum disruption occurs. ABC’s Project Manager ensured that all seating, mobile storage, data cabling and equipment was returned to the workstations providing a covert operation (including the Christmas tree!)

The entrance lobby was upgraded with new ‘Barrier Mat’ to finish the new flooring makeover.

Entrance Lobby