At Secure Power Solutions (SPS), we are known for providing critical power services to a range of clients across Australia. We love the work we do and the clients we support, and our commitment to providing independent, quality advice and services has helped our company to grow.
In fact, this year (2023), SPS has been nominated for a Telstra Best of Business Award for Outstanding Growth which we are really excited about…but that’s a different story.(More to come on that later!)
The story we want to share here is about how a small article in a local paper identified an opportunity for us to support two causes close to our hearts – giving back to the community who have helped us to grow and reducing our environmental footprint.
In 2021, Tony Rutter, Managing Director at SPS, read an article in the local paper about the Wanneroo Community Men’s Shed – a non-profit organisation committed to advancing the health and wellbeing of its members and encouraging greater social inclusion through participating in community activities.
Specifically, this group of men (mostly aged 65yrs and over), along with people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their carers, work to refurbish and recycle donated computers and make them available at reduced prices for those in need and community groups. They also strip old electrical equipment down to their raw materials for more efficient recycling.
At SPS, we are often asked to decommission Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) units. These units provide emergency power when the main electrical supply fails and are not dissimilar to a desktop computer in the way they are built.
“Traditionally, when asked to dispose of UPS units, we would remove the battery for recycling and send the rest to a scrap merchant,” said Tony Rutter.
“Unfortunately, a scrap merchant won’t always make the most of the materials or recycle appropriately so there can be a lot of wastage which goes into land fill. At the time, this was the only solution I was aware of for disposing these units.”
After reading the Wanneroo Times article, however, Tony saw an opportunity to do more and contacted the Wanneroo Community Men’s Shed to organise a collection.
SPS has now been donating items for over a year, most recently donating 20 UPS modules from a decommissioned data centre, south of Perth.
“This time, we filled the trucks twice with all the equipment! It was a great feeling knowing the units wouldn’t just end up in landfill – the parts would be recycled properly, and we’d be giving back to the community that we live and work in,” said Tony.
“The Men’s Shed is a fantastic initiative and SPS is proud to support its efforts to recycle, reuse and repurpose, as well as engage and unite the community.
“Helping them to help others and our environment was an easy choice for us, and we’ll continue to support them whenever we can.”
This support for recycling, however, is not just a “one-off” event.
At Secure Power Solutions, our commitment to reducing waste goes beyond simply dividing our rubbish into different bins. We are genuinely committed to initiatives which minimise harm to the environment.
That’s why we are working to align our practices with best practice and seeking ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems) accreditation. ISO 14001 is an internationally recognised set of standards designed to help organisations improve their environmental performance through more efficient use of resources and reduction of waste.
Watch this space, we hope to announce our successful accreditation soon!
