TIDY Business is a service aimed at councils, town centre managers and private companies to make areas more aesthetically pleasing to residents, visitors, workers, businesses and investors alike.

TIDY Business is an annual award scheme with three levels. Its main aim is to raise awareness of all businesses to the ways in which they contain, store, collect and dispose of their waste, as required by the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland)Order 1997. The scheme also gives public recognition to the efforts that businesses make to better their waste management practices and to improve the visual appearance of their local environment. The incentive is provided by the desire to be an environmentally responsible business.

The bronze standard is awarded to businesses meeting all of the statutory Duty of Care requirements for commercial waste. The Silver Standard requires compliance with all the Bronze criteria, and also rewards initiatives for recycling and waste minimisation. To achieve the Gold Standard, businesses must play a part in actively improving their local environment, for example through taking part in community activities such as clean ups.

Premises that meet the required standards are awarded a certificate and window sticker to display to their customers. If standards are not met, the certificate and sticker will be revoked until any problems have been resolved.

Benefits of TIDY Business

Mismanaged trade waste is a major problem that can contribute significantly to litter on our streets. Research shows that many businesses are ignornat of the correct way to dispose of waste. TIDY Business vastly improves the understanding and use of local Trade Waste service agreements, through a positive and mutually beneficial partnership between businesses and the council. Together with independent trade waste contractors you will be able to encourage the placement of wastes at the correct time, and the proper storage of waste.

The scheme also provides a channel through which you can encourage waste minimisation, re-use, recycling, and practical efforts to improve local environmental quality.

TIDY Business and Best Value

TIDY Business provides measurable, comparable outcomes, which are valuable for the reporting mechanisms required by Best Value. Demonstrating effective consultation and partnership projects with the provate sector and the community also supports the principles behind community planning. The amelioration of the centres of towns and cities is one of the key requirements of neighbourhood renewal.

Links to the Waste Strategy for Northern Ireland

The Waste Strategy is a statutory document under Article 19 of the Waste & Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 and contains policy measures in relation to the reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal of waste.

TIDY Business will assist the council in monitoring progress towards the reduction of waste produced by small / medium sized businesses.

The Waste Strategy identifies many areas that businesses may wish to use to prevent waste production. The development of a long term TIDY Business scheme will assist your council in meeting the vision, aims and objectives of the waste strategy.

Activities that can be integrated into your scheme can include:

a)Integration of local TIDY Business scheme business partners into local support clubs, such as green business clubs;

b)Encouragement of sectoral producer responsibility initiatives, for instance, if you have certain industry types producing similar wastes, it may be possible to encourage those businesses to recycle together;

c) Routes to provide best practice to encourage adoption of waste management, reduction and recovery.

Benefits for Businesses

TIDY Business is a free scheme, run by the council, for businesses, which will help to save them money in waste disposal in the long term. It provides positive action to customers and provides them with an ongoing programme of training and monitoring, which could feed into an environmental management systems accreditation such as ISO 14001.