No more landfill trips for Elekta’s United Kingdom manufacturing facility

Elekta’s Crawley, UK-based operations achieve sustainability goal years ahead of schedule

As of March 1, Elekta’s facilities in Crawley, UK “Cornerstone,” stopped trucking the solid waste products from linear accelerator manufacture and office refuse to a landfill. Whatever can’t be recycled back into the manufacturing stream is converted into electricity via incineration and organic matter is transformed into biomass fuel.

The company-wide zero-landfill goal for all Elekta facilities worldwide is 2024-25. The UK joins its counterparts in Veenendaal, the Netherlands and Stockholm, Sweden in celebrating this impressive achievement well ahead of schedule.

“When Elekta moved into our Cornerstone facility we signed a new contract with the refuse disposal vendor that specified intensive segregation of materials.”

“When Elekta moved into our Cornerstone facility we signed a new contract with the refuse disposal vendor that specified intensive segregation of materials,” says Elekta Global Facilities Director Tim Rose. “We separate it all as it’s loaded into the building’s waste compound. We have wood and cardboard compactors and we segregate all metals and electrical waste. Anything that’s left goes into general waste and segregated at the waste company. Shipping crates get crushed and chipped and recycled into pallets and metal is melted down and recycled. Food waste from the building goes into biomass fuel production.”

At the end of these segregation and recycling processes is – over the course of a year – just five tons of hazardous waste destined for incineration at a gas-fired power station in Shoreham-by-Sea. The incineration exhaust is passed to a steam turbine to create electricity (11,000 volts) that the waste vendor sells to the national grid to provide power for local houses.

“Realizing that Elekta went from sending about 1,000 tons of landfill waste every year to nothing in such a short time is a stunning achievement, particularly since the UK’s landfill acreage is low and rapidly diminishing.”

“Realizing that Elekta went from sending about 1,000 tons of landfill waste every year to nothing in such a short time is a stunning achievement, particularly since the UK’s landfill acreage is low and rapidly diminishing,” Rose says.

Eliminating landfill input and decreasing CO2 emissions are major aspects of Elekta’s overall sustainability mission worldwide, according to Elekta Global Sustainability Manager Lisa Hjalmarsson.

“As an international company, we have global responsibilities, not just to our shareholders and employees, but also to the communities we work in, and the world we leave behind to our children and grandchildren.”

“As an international company, we have global responsibilities, not just to our shareholders and employees, but also to the communities we work in, and the world we leave behind to our children and grandchildren,” she says. Conducting a business sustainably and responsibly is not a matter of choice anymore. It is a necessity, and it is a fundamental part of our company strategy and integrated in everything we do at Elekta.”

Read more about what Elekta is doing to help make a positive difference for the planet.