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Cleaning services Rd4 takes care of the collection and processing of waste flows, as well as the management of the environmental parks for ten smaller and larger municipalities in South Limburg. The long-term ambition is to keep 80% of everything offered out of residual waste and to recycle it for reuse of materials. Guy Drummen, Manager of Policy & Sales at Rd4 talks about it.

2020 was an exciting year for Rd4. In 2019, the seven environmental parks managed by Rd4 were still processing an average of around 22,000 visitors per month, during the intelligent lockdown that number rose to up to 34,000 visitors per month. “People started cleaning up en masse,” states Guy Drummen, Manager of Policy & Sales at Rd4. “We had to extend our opening hours and employ more staff. Fortunately, we were able to temporarily deploy some of the employees from the thrift stores we operate to the parks, as those stores had to close.”

Sustainable positioning

Rd4 consciously chooses a sustainable positioning and sets the bar high in doing so. Roger Wetzels, Manager of Raw Materials at Rd4: “In the Rd4 Strategic Multi-Year Plan, we set ourselves the goal of growing into one of the most sustainable public organizations of South Limburg. Part of this is the implementation of a Raw Materials Plan, in which we strive for a waste-free society and in which today’s waste becomes tomorrow’s raw material. We are increasingly thinking in terms of raw materials, as evidenced also by a pilot we are doing with the establishment of a Circular Craft Center where high-quality product and material reuse can take place.”

Although Rd4 is already at an average of 72% recycling, the targeted growth of 8% in the coming years will not happen by itself, Drummen and Wetzels said. “We will have to do even more to provide information, communication and especially to physically motivate citizens to hand in waste separately. At the same time it helps if you make the threshold as low as possible. For that reason we have set up the BEST bag in a number of municipalities to keep old books, small electrical appliances, toys and textiles out of residual waste. This BEST bag is collected from homes every two months.”