A local council worker won an award at a prestigious national awards ceremony last week.

Graeme Cunningham, environment manager at Clackmannanshire Council, received The People’s Choice Award for Outstanding Contribution, a peer-nominated prize for someone who made a visible difference to resource efficiency within the resource management industry.

Graeme was awarded at this year’s Scottish Resources Wards Dinner, part of the Scottish Resources Conference 2014. Donald Balsillie, enterprise and environment convener at Clackmannanshire Council, was full of praise for the winner. He said: “Congratulations to Graeme on this well deserved award for his outstanding contribution to sustainability.

“The hard work and dedication of Graeme and his team at the council has helped to ensure that Clackmannanshire is a top area for recycling household waste in Scotland. His dedication in working in partnership with residents means that waste is reduced and reused as much as possible and what’s left is recycled, and that’s good news for our local economy and our environment.” According to his nomination, the environment manager has been a major influence within the waste and resource sector in Scotland, in which he has been working for over 30 years.

Besides his full time job with the council he chaired to CoSLA Waste Managers network for several years, and voluntarily contributed to other organisations such as CIWM, Zero Waste Scotland and SEPA.

Over 300 delegates attended the conference, which is thought to be the most successful event to date. It included a number of high-profile speakers from the resource and waste management industry as well as a keynote address from the environment secretary Richard Lochhead.

Iain Gulland, director of Zero Waste Scotland, said: “I’d like to offer my congratulations to all of the winners and nominees in this year’s Scottish Resources Awards. It’s terrific to see how people from different sectors and fields are producing results which really progress the agenda.

“We will need the expertise and innovation of people like these to move towards a more sustainable resources industry and a more Circular Economy in Scotland. I’m already looking forward to next year’s awards as this industry goes from strength-to-strength.” Steve Lee, chief executive of CIWM, added: “The awards recognise those companies, local authorities, and individuals who have gone the extra mile to make a real difference to resource efficiency in our industry.

“As well as many other worthy winners, we were yet again overwhelmed by the response to the Young Recycler award; young resource and waste managers are really stepping up to the challenges our industry is facing. Their enthusiasm and dedication is encouraging.”