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The cleaning, hygiene and waste industry has come together to issue a call for sector staff to ‘speak up’ for their industry and help lobby MPs and sign a petition to make cleaning and hygiene a national priority.
The British Cleaning Council and 22 associations from across the industry are frustrated by the lack of interest from MPs (except for Chairman Nigel Mills MP) and political parties in the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Cleaning and Hygiene Industry, entitled Embedding Effective Hygiene for a Resilient UK.
The report’s recommendations, if implemented, would put cleaning and hygiene at the heart of the national agenda, making the nation much more resilient to current common infections and also much better prepared for future public health emergencies, like the Covid-19 pandemic.
Members of the industry are being asked to download and adapt a pre-written letter highlighting the issue to email to their local MP, and also to sign a petition, both calling on the Government to implement the report recommendations in full. People can scan a QR code (see below) or click here to find the letter and petition and find details of their local MP on the BCC website.
Since the APPG inquiry was first established last autumn, the BCC has sought extensively to engage MPs and the Government about the report with little response so far.
The BCC is now calling for the entire industry to back the drive to promote the APPG report to Government via the nation’s MPs.
The drive takes place under the umbrella of the BCC’s We Clean, We Care campaign, which reflects the pride cleaning staff have in the vital, frontline role they perform, keeping others safe, well and healthy.
BCC Chairman Jim Melvin will address attendees at the Cleaning Show next month about the initiative and ask them to back the campaign. Information, along with free We Clean, We Care badges, will also be available from the BCC’s stand at the show.
Melvin said: “I remain incredibly frustrated by the unbelievable lack of interest from MPs and Government in the APPG report. It is a very credible document and deserves to be taken seriously.
“If you believe that cleaning and hygiene should be a national priority, as I and the members of the BCC do, now is the time to speak up on its behalf.
“We are asking colleagues in our industry to contact MPs themselves about this pressing issue. For the avoidance of any doubt, MPs will no longer be able to claim that they weren’t informed about it.
“With flu regularly reappearing and the constant threat of a new Covid variant, we are talking about measures that will protect people’s health and save lives.
“There are arguably almost 218,000 reasons why MPs should collectively want to ensure that the nation does everything in its power to learn the lessons of the pandemic and reflect a new national process and culture around cleaning and hygiene for the future, in order that we significantly reduce the possibility of revisiting the tragic events of the last few years and causing more lives to be lost.
“We clean but do we collectively care enough to take part? We truly need your help please or do we simply accept this lack of involvement from those in power as the norm and agree that this is where we seemingly sit?
“I genuinely do not think that is what staff in our sector believe, and I hope that we demonstrate it across our great industry by active involvement in this campaign.”
FMJ in conjunction with Grundon Waste Management is pleased to launch the 2023 waste management and recycling survey which examines the ways in which FMs approach their waste management responsibilities.
In this, the sixth year for the annual appraisal, we know there is a greater opportunity than ever for FMs to reappraise their waste and recycling operations and help their organisations meet the growing pressure to achieve ESG goals.
We want to learn how FMs have adapted to the legislative, economic and societal changes of the past year and how they plan to meet the latest waste and recycling targets.
In this survey we’ve posed a series of questions which include insights into FMs’ waste management strategy and targets, how they’re moving towards zero waste targets, and the importance of not just meeting compliance targets but also ESG goals.
The results of the 2023 survey will be published in FMJ magazine and form the basis of a white paper co-written by FMJ and the experts at Grundon on how to approach waste and recycling strategies.
To take part click here.
