THE next company ruler or keyring you pick up could have once been someone else's drinking cup, now that a Worcester company has started watching its waste.

Yamazaki Mazak, based at Warndon Business Park, has found a new way to re-use the 7,000 plastic cups its 430 employees use each week.

The company is the European headquarters of Japan-based Yamazaki Mazak, the world's largest supplier of computerised lathes, machining centres and manufacturing systems,

Improve

Each department holds regular-brainstorming sessions to find ways to improve the company's impact on the environment.

As a result Graham Elcock, health and safety co-ordinator, headed Waste Watchers, a team that looks at new ways to dispose of waste rather than dump it in a landfill site.

"After reviewing the existing system for general disposal and analysing the waste generated, it was agreed that a significant difference could be made by recycling the vending cups used everyday by Mazak employees - around 7,000 a week," said Mr Elcock.

Now the company uses special bins to collect the cups and then passes them on to the Save a Cup charity, based in High Wycombe.

"Save a Cup, a registered charity, is a national system of collection and recycling of used plastic vending cups which are then manufactured into different plastic items, such as rulers, cup stands or key-rings which can be personalised to a company's own specifications," Mr Elcock said.

"We decided the best way of collecting the cups was in specially designed bins, in order that all employees would quickly form the habit of finishing their drink and popping the empty cup into the designated slot.

"It is a simple solution which saves the company money, reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and demonstrates our awareness, as a company, of local issues.

"We are continuing to look at many different ways of recycling, reusing or reducing our waste and hope that our example will encourage other companies to do the same."