New commercial food waste legislation in the UK will be in place from the end of March 2025. It means that from this date most businesses will have to separate food waste from other rubbish streams. Companies must store food waste in separate bins and arrange collection by licensed waste carriers.

These are part of Defra’s simpler recycling plans that aim to improve recycling rates, simplify waste management, and benefit the environment. Mandatory food waste separation should ensure less waste food makes its way to landfill sites and is instead disposed of responsibly.

At Business Waste we can help companies of any industry and size anywhere in the UK arrange separate food waste collections. Call 0800 211 8390 or contact us online today for a free quote to prepare for the new food waste law. Keep reading to find out more about the changes to food waste legislation in the UK.

Who must comply with the 
new food waste regulation?

Mandatory food waste separation will apply to all non-domestic properties in England that produce more than 5kg of food waste a week, under the new regulation. This covers all businesses, prisons, hospitals, care homes, offices, schools, garages, and transport hubs. It’s especially relevant for restaurants, cafes, pubs, takeaways, bakeries, and butchers.

Micro businesses will be exempt from the new food waste regulation. That means any firm with fewer than ten full-time employees can still dispose of food scraps and leftovers in general waste bins. However, separating food waste is advisable where possible for companies of any size and industry.

It’s much better for the environment for waste food to be composted or sent to an anaerobic digestion plant rather than going to landfill or for incineration. These options create natural fertilisers and biogas that can be used as an energy source. Plus, your business will pay less landfill tax as part of your waste management costs by separating food waste.

Recycling clothes is important as it saves water, materials, and energy compared to creating new garments from scratch. It also keeps old clothes out of landfill sites and incinerators, which reduces the carbon footprint associated with used clothing. Individuals and businesses produce lots of fashion waste, so sustainable management is vital.

In the UK we throw out 300,000 tonnes of old clothes every year – that’s a lot of wasted material. Of this amount, less than a fifth are recycled even though you can recover and reuse many textiles. This includes everything from ripping your favourite pair of jeans, kids outgrowing jumpers, and corporate uniforms and construction workwear becoming damaged.

Homes and businesses should do all they can and recycle rather than bin clothes at the end of their life. These are some of the main reasons why recycling clothes is important:

Preserve water, materials, and other resources

Clothing production relies on using lots of water, raw materials, and other resources. Recycling old clothes eliminates the need to source fresh materials and use up gallons of water to create new clothes. It contributes to a circular economy, while the water and materials saved by recycling can be put to good use elsewhere.

For example, making just one t-shirt uses 2,700 litres of water. Cotton is commonly used to create clothing and it’s highly water-intensive because it’s grown in some of the warmest countries. Then there’s the use of water for dyeing garments, which can pollute clean water in some cases.

Synthetic fibres are formed from crude oil, while the likes of leather, wool, and silk all rely on animals. Recycling old clothes helps recover these materials and reuse them to create new clothing items and textiles. This helps reduce the reliance on gathering fresh materials from such sources, which benefits the environment.

How to reduce clothing waste

Fight fast fashion

The trend for buying cheap clothing and wearing items a few times before discarding them is devastating for the environment. Fast fashion is one of the main polluters in the world. Reassessing your spending habits as a consumer and recycling used clothes is an easy way to tackle the issue.

Businesses can also play a part by adapting their practices. Clothes retailers could reduce how many new seasons and collections they introduce. Offering an incentive to customers who recycle their old items in-store can also benefit the environment, whether it’s a discount or providing access to a new range.

Other companies also rely on clothing, such as uniforms in restaurants, construction gear, and even suits for lawyers. Set a good example as a business by reusing and recycling business clothing where possible and avoid updating designs too regularly, as this can create unnecessary waste.

How to recycle clothes

Preparing to move house is an exciting but busy time. You’ll likely have a list of things to do longer than a giraffe’s neck but it’s a great opportunity to have an efficient clear out of those items you no longer need. There’s no point taking a spare Christmas tree, broken microwave, or unused bedding to your new home.

Sorting out waste before you move can save money and time too. It removes the effort of packing stuff that’s just going to be thrown out anyway and means there’ll be less for your removal firm to manage, which could lead to lower fees. Your future self will thank you for removing waste sorting from the list of jobs to do in your new house.

Hiring a skip can be tempting but it’s expensive, you need the space (and a permit if it’s not placed on private land), and often everything ends up in landfill. Instead, follow these tips to manage all your waste efficiently, cost-effectively, and in an environmentally friendly way when moving home.

Switch electrical appliances

White goods and electrical appliances are some of the other bulky items you might consider getting rid of when moving home. You’ll likely leave the oven behind anyway. If you’re organised you may have agreed to include some other appliances with the house sale, such as a washing machine.

It can be a good negotiating option and saves you the hassle of shifting a few big items. Only leave behind any white goods if it’s been agreed with the buyers. Most people take fridges, freezers, washing machines, and tumble driers with them. If you’re not leaving these items then it’s a good time to assess their future.

You may want a more energy-efficient fridge for your new home or should your washing machine be playing up it could be time for a change. Repairing any faulty electrical appliances is best to extend their life, and save resources, energy, and money. Those beyond repair should be recycled as electricals contain many valuable and hazardous elements.

Many electrical retailers are part of a distributor takeback scheme for WEEE in the UK. Check which stores near you participate and if they’ll accept your old electrical items. This offers a free way to recycle all sorts of old electronics. With small electronic items like kettles and toasters, you can take them to electrical recycling banks.

Get rid of garden waste

Before putting your home on the market you probably tidied up the garden to make it presentable. If you’ve got a garden waste bin then you can use this (as long as it’s emptied before you move out – you don’t want to leave a full bin for the new owners).

Emptying the shed can uncover lots of old tools, plant pots, and gardening equipment you no longer need, especially if you’re moving to a home without a garden. Donating to charity shops, passing on to friends and family, or selling online are all good options. You could also check if any local community groups or allotments can make use of your old gardening gear.

If you’ve got a compost bin then decide whether you’ll leave it for the new owners or take it with you. It’s unlikely you’ll want to transport it full of compost so either spread it on part of the garden that needs it or bag it up. You could also give some compost to any neighbours or nearby allotments that want it.

Learn about garden waste disposal

How to get rid of waste 
before moving

After sorting through everything in your house and deciding what’s coming with you and what must find a new home elsewhere, you should do everything you can to ensure it avoids going to landfill. Whatever items and amounts you decide to throw away, there are a few ways to get rid of waste when moving home responsibly:

• Take it to the tip – you can recycle a wide range of domestic waste at most HWRCs, but you’ll need a vehicle to transport everything to your nearest one.
• Donate items – pass on anything in a usable condition, such as clothes, appliances, electronics, and bedding. You could donate to a charity shop, animal shelter, or just friends, family, and neighbours.
• Sell stuff online – make a bit of money by listing items from your home on sites such as Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. They’ll need to sell before you move though.
• Contact the council – some councils offer bulky waste collection services that can remove certain items from your property. However, slots may be limited (by time and the type/number of items collected) and some authorities charge for the service.
• Arrange collection – use a professional waste management company such as Business Waste to remove and recycle big items such as furniture, electricals, carpets, and bags of garden waste from your home at a suitable time.

Brits are a fashion-conscious bunch, whether we realise it or not. The country has produced many fantastic designers and become renowned for everything from the flat cap and bowler hats to three-piece suits, trench coats, tweed, and tartan. But staying at the cutting edge of fashion means many people regularly throw away old garments.

According to Clothes Aid, we send 700,000 tonnes of clothing to recycling centres, textile banks, clothes collections, and charities every year in the UK. That’s enough to fill more than 450 Olympic swimming pools. But have you ever wondered what happens to clothes at recycling centres and how our old dresses, shirts, and even socks are reused?

Discover what happens to clothes at recycling centres and their possible journeys from your wardrobe to being reused and recycled.

Can you take clothes 
to the tip?

You can take clothes to your local tip or household waste recycling centre (HWRC) in most parts of the UK. Check before you go that they’re accepted and recycled. There should be a specific clothing/textile waste container or area for recycling – don’t throw them into any general waste bins as they may end up in landfill.

Most tips/HWRCs only accept domestic clothes waste, not commercial clothing waste from businesses or other organisations such as old uniforms or stock. If you need to get rid of any type or amount of clothing/textile waste from your company then you’ll have to arrange commercial waste collection.

Many local councils and authorities also have clothing banks around the city or town. These are often found in supermarket and council car parks and other places where there are normally bottle banks and electrical waste banks. They offer a convenient option if you don’t live near a tip or have a car.

Textile recycling

What happens to clothes 
in a clothes bank?

Clothes banks and donation bins are big metal containers used by councils and charities where you can drop off all sorts of old items. Some clothes banks may only be for specific items, such as footwear, and there may be rules (such as clothes must be clean and bagged). Check any signs before popping your old clothing into a donation bin.

The waste management company in charge of the clothes banks will come and empty, remove, or replace them on a regular schedule. It could be weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or just when the donation bin is full. This may vary depending on where the clothes bank is, how much it’s used, and who’s behind it.

All the clothes from the bank will be taken to a facility for sorting and grading. Any grade A clothing (wearable, in good condition, no marks or stains) often goes to charity shops for resale. Grade B clothing (wearable but with marks, bobbling, fading, or tears) is usually sent for use overseas by people in need.

Any clothing that’s badly damaged, in no condition to be worn, and doesn’t class as grade A or B may be sent to a recycling centre. Items like bedding and some other textiles may be resold if in decent condition. Otherwise, they can go to garages and other organisations for use as dust sheets when painting.

Peel back the glamorous outer layer and it reveals a few problems in the beauty industry. One of the main ones is the huge amount of waste the sector generates and what happens to it. For starters, the global beauty industry creates 120 billion bits of packaging every year, which all end up as waste.

Nail bars, hair salons, and beauty parlours all produce high volumes and wide ranges of rubbish. Then there’s the waste from makeup containers, cosmetics, and personal care items used at home. Manufacturers, beauty businesses, and consumers all need to act to improve the sustainability of looking stunning by recycling and reducing waste.

Discover all about the beauty industry’s problems with waste, how to create an effective recycling plan for your beauty business, and ways to responsibly dispose of cosmetics and their containers as a consumer in this guide.

Audit your beauty business

Start by reviewing your current waste management practices. This should include the types and amount of waste your business creates, where it’s stored, and the disposal method. Any aesthetics waste, chemical waste, or hazardous materials must be stored safely on your site before removal.

Review the results of your audit and the current bins you use to see if there are any areas where you’re throwing out recyclable rubbish with general waste – such as cardboard packaging or glass containers. If so, you should consider adding a dry mixed recycling or cardboard recycling bin to your waste services.

Consider any areas where you create high levels of waste and try to work out why this is. It could be poor working practices, an ordering error, or something else. There might be ways to cut this down, which may also reduce the number of bins and collections you need to lower your waste management costs.

How to conduct a waste audit

How to recycle makeup

Makeup recycling is an easy way to reduce waste, whether you’re getting rid of unwanted lipstick or an empty face cream tub. Recycling unused or used products is possible in various ways. Never pour makeup down the sink or a drain though, as the chemicals may then enter waterways and damage the environment.

These are a few ideas for ways to recycle old makeup:

• Pass on products – if you’ve got some half-used makeup items you no longer want, consider passing them on to a friend or family member who might use them. Maybe the eye shadow colour isn’t quite right, or the skin cream caused a reaction – it’s better if someone else finishes using it rather than it going in the bin.
• Donate to a charity – many charity shops might accept makeup products if they’re unopened, in date, and intact to sell and support their cause. There are also women’s charities that can redistribute items to help those in need.
• Sell items online – you could raise a bit of money by selling unwanted makeup products online through sites such as Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, and Vinted. Ensure they’re in date and decent condition.
• Recycle makeup packaging at home – you can recycle cardboard and paper packaging from makeup products in most domestic recycling bins, bags, or containers. Check with your local authority as some accept certain types of plastic waste too. Ensure they’re clean and dry before throwing them away. You can take clean and dry glass makeup jars or pots to bottle banks too.

• Use a take-back scheme – many healthcare shops and beauty retailers have containers where you can return empty or partly empty makeup containers when you’re finished with them. This ensures everything is disposed of responsibly.

Ways to reduce cosmetic waste 
as a consumer

Consumers can help reduce waste in the beauty industry by recycling cosmetics and changing behaviours for a more sustainable future. Here are a few ways to buy and use beauty products in a way that will hopefully create less waste:

• Choose cosmetics in recyclable packaging – purchasing creams, conditioners, and other beauty products in glass bottles and jars is better than plastic. This is because glass is easier to recycle and infinitely recyclable.
• Buy beauty products with less packaging – look for beauty products that come with little or no packaging. Buying a bar of soap in a paper wrapper creates less waste than a plastic bottle of shower gel, for example.
• Recycle beauty products in-store – clean out empty beauty products and return the containers to drop-off points offered by retailers to ensure they’re disposed of properly.

Find more information on our page about managing beauty salon waste.

Or explore more expert guides about reducing waste of many other materials.

Many restaurants serve up something unsavoury alongside their delicious dishes – lots of avoidable waste. There’s all the leftover food, packaging from ingredients, and even furniture when it’s time for a refurbishment every five or so years. A growing trend for low and zero-waste restaurants aims to make the sector more sustainable.

The UK hospitality industry creates £3.2 billion of food waste each year according to WRAP. This includes hotels, bars, and other entertainment venues alongside restaurants, and they produce many other waste materials at high cost too. Running a zero-waste restaurant could help your business save money as well as the planet.

There are many areas to look at if you want to operate a low or no-waste restaurant. Small changes and large improvements can help cut your waste management costs and benefit the environment. Find out how to run a zero-waste restaurant with these ideas.

How to reduce waste in restaurants

Eliminate food waste in the kitchen

It’s estimated that food service and hospitality companies throw away 920,000 tonnes of waste food annually. According to WRAP, 21% of food wasted is due to ingredient spoilage in UK hospitality every year. Eliminating waste in your commercial kitchen is something you have more control over when running a restaurant than plate waste.

Use the following tips to reduce waste food from your restaurant’s kitchen:

• Store ingredients properly – review your fridges, freezers, and other storage facilities to ensure they operate at the right temperature to keep ingredients fresh. Keep the areas clean and tidy and place lower-risk foods on higher shelves to reduce the risk of spoilage.
• Explore ways to use leftovers – save leftovers from your meal preparations and find ways to incorporate them into your menu. Vegetable peelings and animal bones are great for making stocks, soups, and cooking vinegars while old bread can be turned into croutons or breadcrumbs.
• Juice imperfect fruit and veg – if you receive any fruit or veg that’s squashed, out of shape, or too soft to use in your dishes, juice them. It avoids waste and you can add to your menu or offer a small glass to customers on the house as a nice amuse bouche.
• Use local and seasonal produce – there’s less distance to travel when sourcing local ingredients. This saves energy and minimises fuel pollution. Plus, there’s less chance of spoilage during shorter transportation and foodstuffs should arrive fresh.
• Regularly review your menu – track your orders to see which dishes are most and least popular. Use this information to adapt the ingredients you use to avoid over-ordering items that go off. Remove any unpopular dishes from the menu too.
• Train kitchen staff – upskilling chefs and other kitchen staff by sending them on training courses can help reduce food waste in the kitchen. Little things like chopping, cooking, and preparation techniques can all help lower waste levels and inspire new ways to cut down on restaurant kitchen food waste.

How to reduce food waste

Trim waste at the table

Out front in your restaurant is another place where you can reduce waste with a few simple steps. At the table, many waste materials may build up beyond leftover food. Transition to a zero-waste restaurant with these actions to minimise waste at your tables:

• Switch to cloth napkins – used paper napkins aren’t recyclable due to contamination and their thin paper fibres. Cloth napkins can be cleaned and reused, which eliminates waste.
• Ditch the tablecloth – disposable tablecloths should be avoided at all costs, while even cloth ones can be problematic. This is because often those washed professionally are returned in thin plastic bags that aren’t recyclable. Bare tables offer an appealing aesthetic and are easier to clean too.
• Keep condiments in containers – avoid little packets of salt, pepper, ketchup, and other condiments as the packaging isn’t always recycled. Bulk buy such condiments and put them out on tables in glass containers that can be refilled and reused.
• Provide jugs of tap water – plastic water bottles have a hugely negative impact on the environment. Simply put a jug of tap water with glasses on every table to avoid the need to sell them.
• Serve draught drinks – cut back on glass and plastic bottle waste by providing beer, soft drinks, and even cocktails on draught.
• Create recycled table decorations – clean and dry empty wine bottles and add light strings inside or use old ingredients jars as candle holders or vases. It’s cost-effective and good for the environment.

Repair and upcycle 
furniture and equipment

Many restaurants have a refurbishment every five or seven years. Rather than chucking out old furniture when the time comes, consider upholstering chairs and tables instead. Repairing and upcycling furniture saves lots of waste going to landfill. You can always donate furniture to a charity if you must get rid of it.

Repair rather than replace broken equipment from your restaurant where possible too. Get some experts to repair any kitchen equipment such as ovens, dishwashers, or even electric whisks. This saves huge amounts of WEEE and should be cheaper than buying brand-new equipment.

Learn more about restaurant waste management

The beginning of a new year is a popular time to set goals for the coming 12 months. Businesses update targets while many people renew gym memberships and try to stay away from cigarettes, chocolate, or other vices. January feels like a fresh start for making behavioural changes.

Beyond the traditional tried and tested New Year’s resolutions, why not aim for something that benefits the environment this year? Reducing waste is important for businesses and households across the world. Setting a few simple goals helps keep you on track with just some small behavioural tweaks needed to reach them.

Get started with our 12 New Year’s resolutions to reduce waste – one for every month of the year. Each goal helps protect the planet but may also save your business or household money. Choose your favourites, do them all, or try one a month, whichever method you prefer should make a positive difference.

The Welsh Parliament (the Senedd) passed a new law in the last week of November – the Workplace Recycling Regulations. This will change how all workplaces across the country store, manage and dispose of commercial waste from the start of April 2024.

Businesses, charities, and public and third sector organisations must separate certain recyclable materials and arrange collection away from other waste. Essentially, it means workplaces will legally have to separate paper and card, glass, packaging, food, electrical, and textile waste for recycling like most households already do.

The Senedd is making this a legal requirement to improve recycling rates in Wales and move the country closer to becoming a zero-waste nation and reducing carbon emissions. Failure to comply could result in a fine for your business.

Learn all about the new Workplace Recycling Regulations and how to prepare for them with Business Waste.

Why is this new law 
being introduced?

Changes to the law around workplace recycling in Wales aim to help the country work towards becoming a zero-waste nation and reducing carbon emissions by 2050. Recycling rates for households in Wales are already high compared to most other countries. Just over 65% of materials collected by local authorities from homes are recycled.

The new Workplace Recycling Regulations aim to replicate these results for businesses and improve recycling rates in Wales across the commercial, charity, and public sectors. Separating and sorting recycling in workplaces should ensure greater volumes of high-quality recycling are produced and much less waste is sent to landfill and for incineration.

There’s also an economic boost by increasing recycling rates across Wales. It helps to keep materials in use for longer, which tackles the rising cost of materials and reduces how much landfill tax businesses pay for their waste management. Greater recycling should also create new and more job opportunities.

Christmas is the season of giving. But that doesn’t mean presenting your binmen or waste collection company with gifts of extra rubbish to remove this year. It happens though, as UK homes create almost a third more waste over the festive period – and businesses aren’t much better.

For example, around 227,000 miles of wrapping paper and 270,000 tons of food are chucked out every year at Christmas. It’s enough to turn Rudolf’s nose red with anger. Check out our Christmas waste facts for more shameful stats about how much rubbish we churn out every holiday season.

There are many ways to be sustainable at Christmas and give back to the environment. Your decorations, food, and celebrations can be as green as one of Santa’s elves’ outfits with a little effort. Use these sustainable Christmas ideas to enjoy the most wonderful time of the year in an eco-friendly way.

Explore our Christmas waste guides 

Consider sustainable Christmas cards

It’s estimated that we send around eight billion Christmas cards in the UK every year. That’s an awful lot of trees chopped down for the paper and card to make them all. Most Christmas cards are recyclable and therefore fairly sustainable, although those featuring glitter, glue, and plastic are trickier to recycle.

Recycling Christmas cards also requires energy and effort, so a more sustainable option can be to consider sending an e-card or simply don’t bother this year. Finding a cute Christmas picture and sending it to friends and family over social media, WhatsApp, or email could suffice and use zero paper and card.

Learn all about Christmas card recycling

Put up sustainable Christmas decorations

Tinsel is terrible for the environment as the PVC film and metallic coating can’t be separated and recycled. Thankfully, there are many eco-friendly alternatives for decorating your home or workplace in December. These include making a sustainable Christmas wreath from natural items to stringing up solar lights outside or on your Christmas tree.

Handmade decorations, sustainably sourced baubles, and table decorations – including sustainable Christmas crackers – are essential. Avoid plastic decorations and those that use a combination of materials as they’re harder to recycle. One of the most sustainable actions is to simply use the same decorations from last year and store them for many years to come.

Read our guide to sustainable Christmas decorations

Umbrellas protect against the UK’s frequent wet and windy weather. The battering they receive from numerous storms adds up after a while though, tearing the material and sometimes snapping their spokes. If you’ve popped up a parasol for the last time or struggled as your umbrella turned inside out once too many, it’s probably time to get rid of it.

Around 1.45 million umbrellas are sold every year in the UK to help keep us dry on those all too common grey and drizzly days. Sales have also increased over the past few years with more than £14 million spent annually on new umbrellas. But what do you do when one reaches the end of its life?

Recycle an umbrella rather than chucking it in the bin where there’s a chance it could end up in landfill. There are various ways to reuse and recover the materials of a broken umbrella. Discover some great umbrella recycling ideas in this guide.

Umbrella disposal for businesses

Various businesses can find themselves with umbrellas they need to dispose of as well. It could be shops with excess umbrellas they can’t sell or damaged stock, umbrellas left behind after an event such as a festival, or even manufacturing firms that produce umbrellas having broken items they need to get rid of from a factory.

Umbrellas that any type of business wants to recycle or dispose of class as commercial waste. If your business has lots of old, unused, or broken umbrellas it no longer needs then you must arrange commercial waste collection. Licensed waste carriers will remove them and transport them to a waste management facility for recycling and responsible disposal.

Call 0800 211 8390 or contact us online for a free quote to collect and dispose of your commercial umbrella waste.

Get a free quote

Umbrella recycling ideas

There are many ways you can reuse an old or broken umbrella even if it won’t keep the rain or sunshine out any more. Upcycling umbrellas helps to reduce waste, keep them out of landfill, and save on the energy and resources required for recycling. Plus, it puts them to good use in other ways.

Here are a few easy ideas for upcycling by turning your old umbrella into a:

• Light shade – colourful umbrella canopies make wonderful light shades for your living room, hallway, or garage. Keep the ribs in place with the umbrella top open and position it over a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling for great effect.
• Chandelier – remove the canopy and turn the frame of your old umbrella upside down to form a DIY chandelier. Hang and attach decorative bits to the ribs to add a touch of class.
• Mini greenhouse – transparent plastic umbrella canopies and the ribs are ideal as a cover for precious plants in your garden, acting like a small greenhouse. Remove the shaft and handle and secure it in the ground so it won’t blow away to help plants thrive.
• Hanging basket – simply flip an old umbrella upside down and hang it outside for an easy hanging basket. You can also partially close the umbrella and hang it indoors or outside then fill it with a bouquet of flowers.
• Coat rack – traditional curved umbrella handles make a great coat rack. Remove them from the rest of the umbrella, turn them upside down, and nail them into a small board for a quick and easy coat rack.
• Clothesline – get rid of the canopy and use the metal shaft and ribs of an umbrella as a clothesline either inside or outside. Find something to hang it from, such as a tree or pole. It’s great for drying small items like socks and tea towels.
• Costume – dressing up as Mary Poppins? It doesn’t matter if the umbrella is in working order or not – you’re unlikely to fly away with it anyway. Get creative and use the canopy of an old black umbrella as the wings of a bat for a spooky Halloween costume or transform the fabric into a cape.

Explore the advantages of recycling

Attend a public bonfire

Setting off fireworks and having a bonfire in your garden is a fun way to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night but it’s not the most sustainable option. Many councils, pubs, and community clubs host their own Bonfire Night parties. There are many reasons why attending a public display is better for the environment, as it:

• Minimises emissions as it avoids you from having a bonfire at home that would otherwise add to increased particulate and soot levels in the air.
• Reduces waste from dead fireworks being littered across the local environment with community displays ensuring all used fireworks and sticks are cleaned up.
• Creates less noise in your local neighbourhood, which should help cause less upset to any pets.
• Costs much less than buying fireworks and wood for a bonfire at home.
• Provides an impressive visual display that’s likely bigger and longer than any event you plan.

Build a better bonfire

Burning rubbish might sound like a great way to avoid any non-recyclable waste ending up in landfill, but you should avoid this. Building a bonfire with household waste, plastics, wet wood, and many other materials can pollute the air, create lots of smoke, and an unpleasant smell.

Burning many waste types is also illegal with a potential fine of up to £50,000. As well as environmental concerns there are also safety risks, so fires must be held in a secure place with plenty of water nearby. If you’re planning a bonfire then here’s how to have one in the most environmentally friendly way:

• Only burn dry, untreated, and unpainted scrap wood. Any wood that could be reused, repurposed, or recycled shouldn’t be burned, as this isn’t sustainable. This includes garden waste, which it’s better to compost rather than burn on a fire.
• Just use small amounts of paper or cardboard to help start the fire. Recycling paper and cardboard is the best way to dispose of these materials, so don’t burn loads on your bonfire.
• Check the weather forecast as it’s best to have bonfires on clear nights with no wind or mist to minimise their impact.
• Look into the bonfire before lighting it to ensure no hedgehogs or other animals are living inside. Building the bonfire on the day helps reduce this risk.
• Dispose of ash properly after your bonfire has burned out. Ensure it’s cooled down and then you can add pure wood ash to a compost heap.

Learn about ash disposal

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) revealed reforms to bin collections and the UK’s waste system at the end of October 2023. These proposals have been dubbed ‘Simpler Recycling.’ They aim to increase, improve, and standardise recycling and waste collections by local authorities across the country for households and businesses.

This should get rid of the current ‘postcode lottery’ where homes in some areas of the country can recycle materials like glass in their domestic recycling bins, while others can’t. The plans also aim to crack down on waste crime, which costs England £1 billion a year, through mandatory digital waste tracking.

There’s a deadline of the end of March 2026 for most of the proposed changes, so there’s plenty of time to get to grips with them. Understand what Defra’s simpler recycling plans are and how they could affect your business with these answers to your common questions.

Note: Simpler Recycling reforms are not currently in force and the proposed changes and timeline could change. Below is all the current information and expected dates about the plans available. You can find more information on the UK government website.

Why are changes to waste 
collections being introduced?

There are three main reasons why Defra is set to update the current waste system – to improve recycling rates, simplify waste management, and crack down on waste crime.

Improve recycling rates

Household recycling rates in England have grown from 11% in 2001 to 42% in 2022. However, they’ve stagnated and missed the target of reaching an average of 50% by 2020. Ensuring all domestic waste collections include the seven core recycling streams should improve recycling rates towards the UK’s household waste recycling target of 65% by 2035.

Simplify waste management

Applying Defra’s simpler recycling scheme across all households and businesses will mean the same materials can be recycled at home or work anywhere in the UK. This removes the current ‘postcode lottery’ about what can be recycled where and avoids any confusion. It should encourage manufacturers to design sustainable packaging that’s recyclable anywhere in the UK, helping boost recycling rates.

Crack down on waste crime

Around 18% of waste in England might be managed illegally according to the Environment Agency. This can have a hugely negative impact on the environment and businesses and costs the economy in England £1 billion a year. Reforming the licensing system for waste carriers, brokers, and dealers with mandatory digital waste tracking aims to centralise reporting and reduce illegal waste activity and its negative impact.

What is mandatory digital waste tracking?

How will Defra’s simpler recycling 
affect businesses?

Businesses will need to arrange collections and recycling of all food waste, glass, metal, plastic, paper, and cardboard they produce by licensed waste carriers. All businesses, schools, hospitals, and other ‘non-household municipal premises in England’ must arrange collection for recycling or composting of the same recyclable waste streams as households under Defra’s new plans – excluding garden waste.

These arrangements must be in place by the end of March 2025. Using commercial waste collection services and licensed waste carriers should ensure compliance with the new plans. You could use separate bins for each recycling stream or dry mixed recycling bin collections to combine paper, cardboard, plastic, and metals for ease.

The government plans to hold a consultation about the definition of ‘non-household municipal premises.’ Depending on the outcome of this it could mean places of worship, prisons, charity shops, and residential hostels are included and will also need to arrange recycling collections in line with the new plans.

What to do with old candles when they’ve burnt out for the last time is important. Candles may seem like a green way to illuminate your space and add a warming atmosphere, as they don’t rely on electricity. Yet at the end of their life, you’re left with a jar, part of a wick, and some small bits of wax.

How to dispose of a candle responsibly depends on what parts of the candle you’ve got left, the condition, what materials they’re made from, and if you’re getting rid of a candle from your home or business. With the right steps, you can reuse and recycle candles in various ways.

Find out how to dispose of candles in this guide with ideas about what to do with old candle jars, leftover wax, and the wick.

Can you recycle 
glass candle jars?

You can recycle glass candle jars with most other old glass bottles and jars. Empty out any leftover wax and wicks then take them to your local bottle bank or HWRC. Recycle glass candle jars in the mixed glass recycling bottle bank or the one for its specific colour.

To recycle glass candle jars from your business you put them in any glass bins you have and add them to your commercial glass waste collections. Again, you must remove any wax and wash out the jars before doing so. This removes contaminants and increases the chance of recycling.

Recycling glass candle jars is important as glass is fully recyclable. It can be endlessly recycled with no loss of quality and is used to create many new glass products. This saves on the energy and resources required to create fresh glass candle jars, resulting in a positive environmental impact.

How to dispose of candles 
from your business

Any businesses with old candles and jars to dispose of must arrange commercial waste collection. It’s a legal requirement that only licensed waste carriers remove commercial waste from your premises, which includes old candles from shops, hotels, restaurants, and any other business. Use a professional waste management company that ensures recycling of your candles.

An easy way to dispose of candles from your business is to remove any wax and wicks, and then recycle them with your current commercial glass waste collection. Just like recycling candle jars at home, you can dispose of them responsibly at work with other waste glass bottles and jars.

This ensures all the candle jars from your business are recycled and turned into new glass products. It also saves you money on landfill tax by reducing the amount of waste you send to landfill. Arrange commercial waste collections to get rid of old candles whether it’s leftover stock, broken candles, or used ones from tables in a restaurant.

17 July 2024

Prepare Your Business for New Food Waste Legislation in the UK

From 31 March 2025, most UK businesses must arrange separate food waste collections. Learn and prepare for the new food waste legislation in the UK.

3 July 2024

Sustainable Company

The study participants included business owners and company employees, revealing unexpected findings about corporate environmental practices.

27 June 2024

What is a Digital Product Passport?

A digital product passport (DPP) shows data about an item’s environmental impact. Find out what digital product passports are and why they’re sustainable.

14 June 2024

How to Have a Low-waste Flight

Food, packaging, and many single-use items are all thrown away when flying. Discover how to have a low-waste flight on your next trip with these tips.

Changes to the classification of ten waste wood items will come into play from 1 September 2023 in the UK. The new classification of these products as hazardous and potentially hazardous waste will affect both producers of waste wood (businesses) and recyclers. Understand the updated regulations to ensure the proper disposal of your wood waste.

The regulatory changes follow around five years of work and testing by the Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) to determine the hazardous waste content of various waste wood products. They mainly affect ‘amber’ waste wood items from the construction and demolition (C&D) sectors, though it could impact some other industries.

Learn all about these changes to wood waste regulations and what your business might need to do to ensure the safe, legal, and responsible disposal of your wood waste.

What do the wood waste regulation changes 
mean for my waste wood collections?

If your organisation produces any of the ten types of waste wood items from pre-2007 buildings they’ll now be treated as hazardous waste. This means you can’t dispose of the likes of external doors or roof timber from pre-2007 buildings with the rest of your wood waste.

Instead, you’ll have to book a separate hazardous waste collection for any of these ten items or arrange suitable testing. You can organise testing of your waste wood items and if it’s proven to not contain any hazardous elements then you can recycle it with the rest of your wood as normal. Confirmation of the test and results must be sent to the wood recyclers.

Research by the WRA estimates that less than 1% of waste wood from C&D activities will contain hazardous content. This represents a small amount of UK waste wood production of around 4,000 tonnes in total. The amount of these potentially hazardous waste wood items is also predicted to fall over time due to newer buildings being constructed and continued testing.

Why can’t wood recyclers 
take all my waste wood?

The regulation changes mean most wood recyclers will update their acceptance criteria to exclude the ten types of hazardous wood waste. This is because most wood recyclers don’t have the facilities to dispose of hazardous waste. Upgrading to accept and dispose of hazardous waste properly would come at a great cost to most wood recyclers to deal with only a small amount of waste.

Wood recyclers will continue to accept most non-hazardous wood waste. They can also take and recycle any of the ten potentially hazardous wood waste items if they’ve been tested and certified as non-hazardous. Disposing of hazardous wood waste through proper channels reduces the risk of contamination and ensures safe, legal, and responsible disposal.

Brits look up tips to lose weight, delete Instagram, and make pancakes over 70,000 times more than recycling advice every month, according to recent online search engine data.

Around 8.5 billion Google searches are made globally every day. This includes millions in the UK that provide a good indicator of topics of interest to the public. But how many relate to recycling? Fewer than the number of people looking up ‘Barbie dream house’ combined it seems (36,000 searches a month).

According to what we’re searching online, most of us are more interested in learning how to solve a Rubik’s cube than finding out where to recycle batteries. With household recycling rates stagnating across the past ten years in the UK, could few searches for recycling tips and information signal a dwindling lack of interest in recycling by the British public?

Top ‘How to recycle…’ searches

To get a good idea of what items and materials Brits are most interested in recycling we looked at the most common search terms starting with ‘how to recycle…’ by volume. This was done using the Keywords Explorer tool from Ahrefs – provider of leading SEO (search engine optimisation) tools – and filtering to UK results.

The results highlight that people search most for information about how to recycle common materials like plastic, paper, and glass. Trickier items to recycle like polystyrene and light bulbs are also high on the list, as well as searches for recycling methods for the latest trend that’s hard to recycle – vapes.

These are some of the most searched-for ‘how to recycle…’ terms every month in the UK:

People use different terms and phrases to search for recycling-related information, so we looked at some general recycling search volumes too. There were more of these. But given 92% of people in the UK use the internet and there are around 5.5 million businesses, it’s still very low.

Top ‘How to…’ searches

To provide some context, contrast the online searches for terms starting with ‘how to…’ that have the highest volume. There are tens of thousands more every month for a range of useful (and questionable) information. In some ways, it shows Brits care more about knowing how to delete their social media accounts than finding ways to recycle and dispose of waste properly.

“The fact that tens of thousands of us are searching for tips to solve a Rubik’s cube compared to just a handful wanting to know how to recycle plastic bottles suggests recycling has fallen down the list of priorities,” adds Hall.

“And for anyone interested, less than 10 people a month search for ‘how to recycle a Rubik’s cube’. We’d advise donating it to a charity shop or passing it on to someone else.”

Just a handful wanting to know how to recycle plastic bottles suggests recycling has fallen down the list of priorities

These are some of the most searched-for ‘how to…’ terms every month in the UK:

Could chants of “we recycle more than you!”, “you’re unsustainable, and you know you are!”, and “who’s the ****** not recycling!” be bellowed from the terraces this season? If so, don’t expect to hear many in a Scouse or Brummie accent. That’s according to a revised Premier League table based on recycling rates in the areas of each stadium.

At Business Waste we used the latest data for household waste recycling rates across England to predict how this season’s Premier League could pan out. Rather than focusing on wins, draws, and losses, the rankings use the recycling rates of the local authority that covers every stadium’s location.

Data covering recycling rates for individual constituencies isn’t available, which means Everton and Liverpool are tied, as are Chelsea and Fulham. These teams are placed in alphabetical order (and given their positions, there aren’t any worries about bragging rights). To make things fair all data is from 2021/22, as government data for 2022/23 is yet to be released.

The Premier League recycling rate table

Sustainability improvements 
for the Premier League

The table shows there’s still plenty of work for most areas in England to reach the government’s target of recycling 50% of all household waste. While Premier League clubs can’t have a direct impact, they can all play their part to encourage increased recycling and sustainability for their clubs and fans.

Many teams are working towards a greener future. The Premier League Sustainability Rankings considers what clubs themselves are doing to improve their climate credentials. Last season Spurs and Liverpool came out on top, showing that while their local authorities may be falling behind they take sustainability more seriously. And unlike the recycling rate table, Bournemouth find themselves down at the bottom of the sustainability rankings.

Hall adds: “Given the huge amount of money floating around in football it’s about time more teams invested in sustainable waste solutions inside and outside their stadiums. Running a football club that’s as green as its pristine pitch should be the goal for every top-tier team in England.”

17 July 2024

Prepare Your Business for New Food Waste Legislation in the UK

From 31 March 2025, most UK businesses must arrange separate food waste collections. Learn and prepare for the new food waste legislation in the UK.

3 July 2024

Sustainable Company

The study participants included business owners and company employees, revealing unexpected findings about corporate environmental practices.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a new UK regulation that aims to increase the responsibility of businesses that supply or import packaging. It’s a reform to the current Packaging Waste Regulations that will change the management and funding of packaging waste. The costs of managing packaging once it becomes waste will shift to the producers rather than the consumers.

Any organisation in the UK that produces, supplies, or imports packaging will need to report packaging data and ensure EPR compliance when it comes into effect. In July 2023 it was announced that the full introduction of the UK EPR scheme will be pushed back by a year. Businesses should still start preparing for the scheme though.

Getting to grips with extended producer responsibility can seem complex before it’s enforced. Understand what EPR is and whether your business will be affected and need to make any changes with our detailed guide.

Who does the EPR 
scheme apply to?

The EPR scheme applies to any organisation in the UK that supplies or imports packaging. Normally EPR applies to a brand owner or importer. This includes any business that:

• Supplies packaged goods to the UK market under your own brand
• Puts items into packaging that’s unbranded when it’s supplied
• Imports products in packaging
• Owns an online marketplace
• Hires or loans out reusable packaging
• Provides empty packaging

If your business does any of the above then it will need to collect and report its packaging data. EPR regulations apply to any UK organisation that:

• Is an individual business, subsidiary, or group (but not a charity)
• Has an annual turnover of £1 million or more (based on your most recent annual accounts)
• Was responsible for more than 25 tonnes of packaging in 2022
• Carries out any of the packaging activities

For example, imagine you run a food company with branded packaging for your goods. You supply supermarkets and other food retailers with your products that are sold to consumers in the UK. Here the food company must comply with EPR regulations. But if the food items were sold under the supermarket’s branded packaging then the supermarket would be responsible.

You do not have to act under EPR in the UK if you import goods in packaging that’s:

• Branded – you import it for an established brand owner in the UK
• Unbranded – you supply it to a ‘large’ organisation that applies its brand before it’s sold

When will EPR legislation 
be introduced?

The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 came into effect on 28 February 2023. This means producers of packaging should already be collecting and reporting data about the amount and type of packaging they place on the market in England. Large organisations should have registered for the EPR packaging online service by April 2023, while for smaller companies it opens in 2024.

Large organisations in the UK must submit packaging data between 1 January 2024 and 1 April 2024 (this is to cover the period of 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2023). Small organisations should work to the same dates but for data from 1 March 2023 to 31 December 2023.

The introduction of EPR legislation is phased though. In July 2023 the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced a delay for payments for extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging by a year, pushing it back to October 2025. Defra claims the delay is to help efforts to drive down inflation

From October 2025 onwards producers will pay fees based on the recyclability/sustainability of their packaging. The exact charges will depend on how widely recycled the material is and other factors. More detailed data on packaging materials will be necessary at this point compared to what’s reported in the current system.

Prepare for the single use plastic ban

How to prepare for EPR

One advantage of the delay to extended producer responsibility regulations is that businesses have an extra year to prepare for them. Understanding whether EPR legislation will affect your organisation and what you need to do is vital to comply with these new regulations. Important ways to prepare for EPR as a business include to:

• Check whether EPR applies to your organisation or not – your suppliers may hold responsibility.
• Identify any areas of your business where EPR applies and understand its impact.
• Model the regulatory costs and factor upcoming EPR charges into your budget to financially prepare for such change.
• Plan how you’ll gather, collect, and store all data about your packaging and waste. Check your data is accurate and provides complete coverage.
• Consider alternative packaging options to ensure full recyclability and other ways to use sustainable packaging that’s environmentally friendly and financially beneficial for your business.

Single use plastic cutlery, plates, and cups are cheap and convenient, but their disposal is problematic. They don’t break down and can leach chemicals, adding to pollution if they end up in landfill. Even though most single use plastics are recyclable only 10% of single use plastic items are recycled.

To reduce this negative environmental impact the UK government is introducing a single use plastic ban in England from October 2023. This follows on from the existing plastic ban on microbeads in 2018 and single use plastic straws in 2020. And there’s already a single use plastic ban in Scotland that came into force in June 2022.

If your business in England relies on single use plastic products in any form you should be adapting to comply with the ban. To help your organisation prepare for the ban on single use plastic we’ve answered the most important questions about it and provided some useful tips to remove single use plastics from your operations.

Are there any exemptions to the 
single use plastic ban in England?

There are a few exemptions to the England single use plastics ban for specific items:

• Single use plastic plates, bowls, and trays – you can still supply these if it’s to another business or they’re pre-supplied packaging (pre-filled or filled at the point of sale). Examples include a pre-filled salad bowl packaged in a tray, a plate filled at a takeaway counter, or a tray to deliver food.
• Single use polystyrene food and drinks containers – food or drink can still be supplied in polystyrene containers when it requires additional preparation before consumption. For example, this could mean adding water, microwaving, or toasting.

There are no exemptions for supplying single use plastic cutlery and balloon sticks.

Learn about polystyrene recycling

When does the single use plastic ban 
in the UK come into force?

The single use plastic ban in the UK is being introduced across different dates for England, Scotland, and Wales:

• The single use plastic ban in Scotland has been in action since 1 June 2022.
• In England, the single use plastics ban comes into force from 1 October 2023.
• The single use plastic ban in Wales is being introduced in two phases. Most single use plastics will be banned from Autumn 2023, but the following items won’t be banned until 2024 – single-use plastic carrier bags, polystyrene lids for cups and takeaway food containers, and oxo-degradable plastic products.

How to prepare your business 
for the ban on single use plastic

Such a big change and the potential penalties for breaching the plastic ban in the UK means businesses need to be ready for the new rules. Companies in every industry must be compliant with the rules, whether you only provide a few disposable plastic spoons to customers in an ice cream café or regularly use polystyrene food containers.

There are a few things your business should do to prepare for the ban on single use plastic properly:

• Check your stock for disposable products – do an inventory of all single use plastic products your business still has and plan to use, sell, or donate them all before 1 October 2023.
• Find alternatives to single use plastic items – explore reusable, compostable, and biodegradable alternative solutions to the single use plastic items you currently use. Speak to your existing suppliers to see if they can offer an alternative and search for sustainable suppliers.
• Assess the costs – switching to different products and new suppliers will affect the costs to your business. Analyse how this fits with your budget and whether it’s the best choice.
• Consider the consumer – ensure whatever alternatives you source are still of a high quality that will impact your consumers as little as possible. Especially as most single use plastic items are used for food and drink, you’ll need to ensure the alternatives you use still meet all relevant food safety standards.

• Stop ordering new single use plastics – avoid an excess of single use plastic cutlery, plates, and containers by cancelling all orders as soon as possible.
• Introduce plastic recycling bins – ensure you can recycle all types of plastic waste your business produces with an effective plan in place and the right number and sizes of bins.

Buying a wheelie bin may seem like a sensible solution to store waste safely at your business or home. Working out the best price for a wheelie bin can be tricky though. There’s no single wheelie bin price and they vary greatly in cost across different suppliers and manufacturers.

How much a wheelie bin is usually depends on its size and quality (the material it’s manufactured from and any standards it meets). The price of wheelie bins for sale currently ranges from £30 to more than £200 based on the size and the seller. Buying a wheelie bin isn’t always the most cost-effective option though.

Avoid the cost and hassle of buying a wheelie bin with Business Waste. Get free wheelie bins delivered to your organisation anywhere in the UK – you only pay for collection. Call 0800 211 8390 or contact us online for a free no obligation quote tailored to the specific type, size, and number of wheelie bins you need.

How much are 
wheelie bins to rent?

Some waste management companies may charge rental or hire fees to use their wheelie bins to store your commercial waste. Renting should be cheaper than buying a wheelie bin. Hire costs for wheelie bins often depend on their size, waste type, collection frequency, how long you need to use them, and where your business is based.

Rental prices for wheelie bins vary greatly from as little as £1 or £2 a day to £60 a week. The supplier and number of wheelie bins you rent at a time can all impact the price. It should still work out cheaper than renting a skip for your commercial waste.

At Business Waste we provide free wheelie bins for your company to use – you only pay for collection. There are no rental charges or costs to hire or purchase any wheelie bin, whatever the size, type, and number of wheelie bins you need and wherever your business is based in the UK.

Explore all wheelie bin hire options

How much are wheelie bins 
from the council?

Councils have a legal obligation to collect household waste but will only do so if it’s in an appropriate bin that they provide. This is because the bin must fit the mechanical lifting equipment of their waste trucks. If you buy your own domestic bin and it’s the wrong size or type they may not collect your waste.

In many cases, you can buy a wheelie bin from the council in your area. Often you’ll need to do this if your old bin was stolen or damaged, you move into a new home without a bin, or you want an extra bin for your home. Not all councils allow additional household bins though, so check with your local authority first.

The cost of a replacement wheelie bin from the council is normally free, but there’s often an admin and delivery fee. A wheelie bin replacement cost can vary depending on the size and type of bin and your specific local council and their fees. Generally, the cost of a replacement wheelie bin is anywhere from £40 to £50.

The vaping market is one of the UK’s largest growing consumer goods sectors, currently valued at around £1 billion. Vaping shops and the many varieties of e-cigarettes they sell are everywhere. However, there are still many unknowns and some growing concerns around vaping as it’s a relatively recent innovation.

These range from health effects to advertising rules and the environmental impact of old vapes. We’re not medical professionals or advertising gurus, but we are waste management experts who can advise on how to dispose of vapes. The materials they’re made from, how they’re made, and what people and businesses do with them can have a significant environmental effect.

Correct vape disposal depends on various factors, including the type, brand, and whether it’s a consumer or business getting rid of an old one. Discover how and where to dispose of vapes safely and in an eco-friendly way with this guide.

Types of vapes

There were some earlier developments but the first type of e-cigarette (or vape) on the market arrived in 2004, according to the National Library of Medicine. Since then, the vaping market has boomed and there are a few different types of vapes available:

• Vape pens – these are common vapes in a cylindrical shape that can be either disposable or reusable depending on the brand.
• Pod vapes – there are two parts to a pod vape (or pod mod), a rechargeable battery and the replaceable and refillable pod.
• Box mods – currently these are the biggest vapes that have an external battery with variable wattage and temperature control, and a refillable tank.
• Disposable vapes – disposable vapes come in many sizes and flavours and once the battery or liquid runs out you throw it away.

Many brands are bringing out new vapes all the time and should include proper disposal instructions with their products. Generally, the best way to dispose of a vape depends on whether it’s a reusable or disposable vape.

How to recycle vapes

Vape recycling is possible for reusable and refillable devices. The most sustainable option is to keep refilling and reusing the same vape where possible. However, if the vape becomes badly damaged, the battery completely dies, or you need to upgrade then recycling the vape is your next best option.

You can recycle vapes by dismantling them and separating their parts to recycle them alongside the same materials:

• Battery recycling – if your vape has a removable battery you can separate it and take it to any battery recycling point, found in many supermarkets. Vapes with built-in batteries can be taken to most local household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) for recycling with WEEE waste or returned to many vape retailers.
• Pods and tanks – remove the pod, tank, or cartridge from your vape and thoroughly wash it out with water to remove all the excess e-liquid residue. Any glass tanks or pods can then be recycled with glass recycling. If it’s made of plastic, check the packaging and bottom of the cartridge or pod for a recycling symbol and number. Check if you can recycle this type of plastic in your household recycling bin or if you should take it to your nearby HWRC.
• Coils – most coils are removable from the pod or tank, but if not please check the recycling instructions for your specific vape. Remove the coil and separate the cotton or wicking, then wash off any e-liquid residue. The remaining coil can be recycled with metals and in some household recycling bins.

• E-liquid bottles – all e-liquid bottles are made from a type of plastic. Wash out the bottle and check whether you can recycle the type of plastic in your household recycling bin. If not, see whether the plastic type is accepted at your local HWRC.
• Vape packaging – if you’ve still got the original packaging from your vape you can normally throw this away in your household recycling bin if it’s paper and card.

Can you recycle disposable vapes?

You can recycle disposable vapes. Place them in a vape disposal bin, return them to an electrical retailer, or recycle them with WEEE items at your local HWRC. They’ll be transported to a recycling facility where the vapes are dismantled and separated into their components.

These components are checked, sorted, cleaned, and recycled alongside the same materials. The only element of a vape that can’t be recycled is the cotton wick, as it will be heavily contaminated and may even be burnt. Learn more about how each part of a vape is recycled based on its material in our comprehensive guides:

• Battery recycling – lithium-ion battery from the vape
• Metal recycling – the coil inside a vape
• Plastic recycling – the plastic exterior
• Glass recycling – if the vape has a glass tank or component

Easter egg packaging recycling is essential to ensure no trace is left behind from the 80 million Easter eggs we buy in the UK every year. Most of us eat all the chocolate (often faster than we’d like to admit). But what we do with the card, plastic, and foil packaging affects the environment.

Chocolatiers and brands focus on bright and colourful Easter egg packaging to attract the attention of both young and older chocoholics. And it works. Who doesn’t associate that purple, red, and yellow splash with a Cadbury Crème Egg? But how easy is recycling Easter egg packaging once you’ve scoffed the chocolate?

Eggsplore some facts about Easter waste, ways to recycle Easter egg packaging, and how to reduce the amount of Easter packaging your household or business uses in this guide.

How to recycle 
Easter egg packaging

The good news is that today, most Easter egg packaging is recyclable. Only the plastic windows and some wrappers for sweets, chocolates, and treats that certain Easter eggs include are trickier or impossible to recycle. Most packaging can be recycled in your household or workplace recycling bins but check with your local authority or waste service first.

Separate the individual materials and follow these tips for recycling Easter egg packaging:

• Easter egg foil recycling – clean off any chocolate to ensure it’s clean and to avoid contamination. Scrunch it into a ball the size of your fist, which reduces the risk of small bits falling through or getting caught in the recycling machines. Then place it in your recycling bin.
• Cardboard – take out any plastic windows first and check if there’s any glitter or plastic attached. If so, these can’t be recycled and should go in your general waste bin. Most cardboard Easter egg packaging is recyclable though, just flatten it and place it in your recycling bin or a cardboard or paper bin at work.
• Plastic shell – check the type of plastic the shell is made from (the number in a recycling triangle). Most are PET1, which is the same plastic type used for plastic drinks bottles. Nearly all local authorities in the UK accept these in their household recycling bins, while you can also recycle them in commercial plastic recycling bins.
• Plastic wrappers – look at the back of the wrapper and it should say whether the wrapper is recyclable and/or have a plastic type number. Check whether your local authority accepts these in domestic recycling bins. If not, you can take them to some supermarkets that collect plastic bags and film, as well as a TerraCycle point. Otherwise, they should be disposed of with general waste.

How to reduce packaging waste

How is Easter egg 
packaging recycled?

Once you’ve separated the Easter egg packaging waste, put it in the right recycling bins, and they’ve been collected, what happens next? The recycling process is different for each type of material. Generally, Easter egg packaging is recycled in these ways:

• Foil recycling – when recycling Easter egg foil it’s sorted and recycled alongside other aluminium foil, like foil trays and aluminium drinks cans. It’s all cleaned, compressed, and melted down into raw aluminium. This is used to create new foil sheets, trays, cans, and other products.
• Cardboard recycling – waste cardboard is separated into boxboard and corrugated cardboard and different grades. It’s shredded, mixed with water to form a slurry, and combined with pulp made from wood chips. Finally, it’s filtered, chemically processed, cleaned, dried, and turned into new cardboard sheets.
• Plastic recycling – plastics are sorted and cleaned first. Then it’s shredded into flakes and melted into pellets that are used to create new plastic products. Some recycling uses waste plastic to produce petroleum.

Easter waste facts

Table of contents

Overview
The UK’s situation
Hazardous wastes and their regulation
Recycling and energy conversion
Landfilling
Following the waste flow
Future perspectives
References

Overview

Nowadays, our consumeristic culture has led to rates of purchasing that have not been seen before and this has led to an increased turnover of items being thrown away. Public awareness of the importance of waste management has emerged although relatively late. Thanks to the growing sensitivity to environmental and climate issues, a common thread linking these issues have become apparent.

The UK’s current waste management situation

England has made huge steps under this perspective to face a waste pile increasing year after year. The latest report from the government indeed states that this country passed from the 168 million tonnes of total waste produced in 2010 to the 187.3 million tonnes of 2018. England accounts for 84% of the UK’s yield, whose 63% is constituted by the categories ‘mineral wastes’ (e.g., stones, bricks, road surface’s components) and ‘soils’ (earthen materials). Such a high value reflects the predominant impact of demolition, construction, excavation, and other industrial activities. In the UK, waste collection is supported by an efficient (made up of mostly private companies) service system. This is evident in England at county and town levels. Local government authorities benefit from a certain degree of independence in this respect and can administer solutions to specific local needs in the form of services or new installations to aid the recycling and processing of waste. Private companies often manage these public utilities.

Hazardous wastes and their regulation

Despite representing a minimal proportion of the waste produced (between 4 to 5 million tonnes in England), hazardous wastes must be handled consciously. All have industrial origins and are subdivided into six classes: general industry, water treatments, construction and demolition, oils, and chemicals. In England, these rejects are rigidly regulated according to the Government’s Strategy for Hazardous Waste Management. At the international level, the legislation on this subject originates from the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their disposal and an Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Council Decision on the Control of Transfrontier Movements of Wastes Destined for Recovery Operations. OECD protects countries external to the European Free Trade Area from the indiscriminate transfer of wastes. Besides, this organization regulates the transport of rejects across its area following environmentally-driven principles.

Recycling and energy conversion

To cope with this surging problem, the UK is progressively replacing a linear dead-end approach with a circular strategy for waste management. As of 2018, recycling or other forms of recovery involved over 50% of the total waste production. To bring this matter closer to the general audience, it is noteworthy that one third of recycling concerns typical household materials. These have been categorized in the following classes: residual waste, 55%; dry recycling, 27%; unspecified organics, 16%; and separately collected food waste, 2%. Additionally, leftovers directed to energy-recovery treatments have surpassed incineration facilities without R1 accreditation in 2018. In this regard, domestic wastes appear to be suitable for energy conversion, constituting 80% of the total amount transiting through recovery facilities. Moreover, energy conversion commonly referred to as waste to energy ‘kills two birds with one stone’ since it offers a profitable outlet option to materials that are not available for reuse or recycling and require dismantling. In parallel, the average consumer shall be content to know that his/her household rejects represent ‘only’ 34% of what becomes incinerated. As a remarkable example of the possibility to efficiently dispose of household rejects, 44.7% of England’s domestic wastes have been reused, composted, or recycled in 2018. Overall, this corresponds to make 176 kg out of 394 kg of rejects produced per capita available again.


Landfill 2021

On the other hand, landfilling is placed at the second position in the list of waste processings, accounting for 23.6% of the entire waste production in 2018. ‘Soils’ and ‘mineral wastes’ play a dominant role here (58% and 6%), while household materials are present with a minor fraction (10%). Therefore, wastes other than leftovers are unfortunately subjected to this destiny. Also, ‘soils’ materials make up 90% of the backfilling materials. Regardless, newly stipulated policies are intended to decrease the relevance of landfills as waste outputs. As a result, energy recovery facilities with R1 accreditation have increased from 37 to 40 in two years (2016-2018), and the waste tonnages treated have followed a proportional positive trend.

Following and understanding the flow of waste in the UK

Understandably, not all waste types can be tracked according to the Waste from Households (WfH) protocol, which thus is considered to yield only indicative estimates. For instance, this method cannot register wastes derived from healthcare, street filth, and gully drainages. Asbestos, plasterboard, and rubble are not assessed as well. Moreover, individual UK countries can apply distinct protocols and measure different parameters. For example, certain packaging rejects may be over- or under-represented depending on the step of the manufacturing chain at which they are evaluated. Ambiguity might also exist regarding the precise definition of ‘recovery’ versus ‘recycling’, like in the case of metal wastes subjected to incineration. Shifting the focus locally, commercial companies can voluntarily register in the national electronic duty of care (EDOC) system, which enables tracking rejects along the production sequence. To date, more than 11’000 firms adhere to this system.

Future perspectives and goals

Despite the commendable efforts carried out by the UK, much remains to be done. However, at least on paper, some good news is on the horizon. The UK promulgated the 25 Year Environment Plan to preserve the natural landscape’s quality and biodiversity over an intergenerational period. This plan stands on top of the hierarchy formed by the other policies related to such issues (e.g., Resources and Waste Strategy, Waste Prevention Programme for England, Waste Management Plan for England). It has ambitious goals, such as a drastic reduction of carbon emission and international agreements. On a smaller scale, the whole policy system proposes to enhance domestic recycling in different ways. For example, it promotes the door-to-door collection of dry leftovers, the separation of garden wastes, and the weekly gathering of alimentary wastes. Ultimately, these measures are expected to substantially raise the fraction of household recycling, reaching up to 65% before 2035.

References

– HM Government (2018) A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment. Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications (Accessed: 27/09/2021).
– Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, Government Statistical Service (2021) UK Statistics on Waste. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data (Accessed: 27/09/2021).
– Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (2021) Waste Management Plan for England. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/waste-management-plan-for-england-2021 (Accessed: 27/09/2021).

Stringing up Christmas lights creates a warm and festive atmosphere in any office, shop, restaurant, home, or garden. But it’s always a bit sad when the holiday season’s over and you’ve got to take them down without getting too tangled up. The best, most sustainable thing to do is keep them for next year.

Fairy and Christmas tree lights can break, stop working, or you just might not need them anymore. When this happens it’s important you don’t throw them away. Instead, there are many more eco-friendly options to recycle Christmas lights that have been in your tree, decorating the office walls or hotel lobby.

Here we run through all your options whether you’ve got old Christmas lights that don’t work, haven’t got enough storage space to keep them until next year, or simply fancy some new lights for your tree.

How to recycle 
Christmas lights

Recycling Christmas lights is fairly straightforward, but it depends on the type of bulbs they have. If you have old Christmas lights with incandescent bulbs, then you should remove these from the light string first and recycle the light bulbs separately. For fairy lights with LED bulbs, you can recycle the light string as one electrical item.

Arrange delivery and collection of WEEE bins to your premises with Business Waste. We can provide free bins of many sizes for you to fill with electrical waste including old Christmas lights. Our licensed waste carriers will collect and transport the bins to a nearby waste management facility, where the lights will be recycled.

To recycle Christmas lights at home the easiest way is to visit your local household waste recycling centre. There should be a section for electrical items where you can recycle them. You should not throw Christmas lights away in your general waste or household recycling bin.

What to do with old 
Christmas lights that don’t work

You can recycle old Christmas lights that don’t work either by arranging delivery and collection of WEEE bins to your workplace or at a local household recycling centre. Recycling Christmas tree lights still uses energy, so there are other options to prolong the life of any old festive fairy lights, such as:

• Make some repairs – if you’ve had the lights for a few years, it could be that the bulbs just need changing. Replace them and if they light up again then you can keep using them. Another problem could be the wiring, which you might be able to pass on to an electrician to fix.
• Repurpose the lights – even when they don’t light up Christmas lights can make a decorative festive addition to a wreath or garland. When only a few bubs have burnt out you can also put the light string in an empty jar or vase to create a new illuminated Christmas decoration.
• Paint the bulbs – should your Christmas lights be at the end of their life you could paint over all the bulbs to upcycle them. Use festive colours like red and green along with adding glitter to keep their sparkle. Then add to a wreath or just put them up in your office or home for an energy-free festive decoration.

The good old days of traditional card advent calendars are pretty much over. Pulling back a little paper door and seeing an image of a donkey in a stable just doesn’t cut it for kids these days. They need advent calendars packed with chocolate, sweets, and toys. The problem is the extra plastic waste modern advent calendars creates.

And in recent years there’s been a growing trend for more outlandish advent calendars aimed at big kids (adults) as well. Advent calendars for beer, gin, coffee capsules, beauty products, chili sauce, even pork scratchings, all exist. These also introduce extra packaging and materials that make recycling advent calendars tricky.

There are solutions with many sustainable and plastic free advent calendars available, as well as ways to reduce the waste leftover from any advent calendar you or your children have this year. Learn how to recycle and reuse advent calendars this festive season.

Can advent calendars be recycled?

Traditional advent calendars are made from a combination of different materials. Separate the advent calendar and you can recycle the outer cardboard box in your domestic recycling bin. Check the plastic tray for a number and see if that type of plastic is accepted in your household recycling bin.

If the plastic tray is made from PET (1), HDPE (2), or PP (5) then there’s more chance of it being recyclable. This needs to be clean and dry to recycle though. Plastic trays from advent calendars made from other plastic types are less likely to be recyclable and should be disposed of with general waste.

The foil from advent calendars is also recyclable but it must be clean too. If there are bits of chocolate stuck to it this could contaminate the load. So, while you might not be able to recycle a complete advent calendar whole, breaking it down into recyclable parts offers the next best solution.

What can I do with an empty advent calendar?

If you find some of the materials in your empty advent calendar aren’t recyclable, don’t despair. There are many things you can do with the materials to reuse them and ensure it ends up being a more sustainable advent calendar anyway. Try the following things to do with an empty advent calendar:

• Refill and reuse – clean the plastic tray, melt some chocolate, and you’ve got some festive-shaped little chocolates. If the cardboard box and doors weren’t ripped off in excitement opening them, you might be able to reclose them with an adhesive or sticky tape to reuse the advent calendar next year.
• Make decorations – most advent calendars can’t be reused but you can cut out bits of the cardboard designs to make decorations. Put together paper chains, Christmas tree decorations, or wall hangers from the box.
• Create Christmas cards – if there are any characters or design elements intact from your empty advent calendar you can cut them out and stick on some card to make a unique Christmas card. It’s never too early to prepare for next Christmas!
• Gift tags and placeholders – make some last-minute gift tags or placeholders ready for Christmas dinner with your empty advent calendar. Cut out a square or rectangle from the cardboard and write your message or name on the back. It can then be recycled when the day is done.
• Craft confetti – when there’s not much of the design that’s salvageable from your advent calendar you could always shred it to form confetti for any upcoming celebrations, such as New Year.

Recycling Christmas cards is incredibly easy for both businesses and households. As January arrives, it’s time to take down all those cards with nativity scenes, cartoon reindeers, and dirty Santa jokes (thanks Uncle John), whether they’re from clients, friends, or family. But don’t just chuck them in your general waste bin!

Instead, recycling old Christmas cards should be your first action. The good news is that almost all Christmas cards are recyclable. When it comes to disposing of Christmas cards it’s easy to ensure your home or business is as green as the Christmas tree was when you first put it up (the less said about its browning leaves now, the better).

Discover everything you need to know about recycling Christmas cards and do your bit for the planet in this guide.

For all things relating to Christmas waste including statistics visit our Christmas waste hub.

Can you recycle 
Christmas cards?

You can recycle paper-based Christmas and envelopes. Therefore, most traditional Christmas cards are recyclable, and you can put them in your household recycling bin or take them to local recycling points (such as a nearby household waste recycling centre or some supermarkets). However, you must remove any non-paper or card-based additions, such as glitter and foil, to recycle Christmas cards.

You cannot recycle Christmas cards that contain:

• Plastic
• Glitter
• Batteries
• Electronics
• Ribbons

Learn more about recycling greetings cards 

Why should I 
recycle Christmas cards?

I’ve already got general waste bins, can’t I just chuck them in there? No – Christmas cards are one of the easiest types of waste to recycle, so you should always put them in your domestic recycling bin or a cardboard or dry mixed recycling bin at work.

It’s the sustainable and responsible option, as the cards can be turned into new paper and card products. This saves on the materials and energy required to create new Christmas cards for next year, reducing carbon emissions that affect global warming.

Plus, for businesses, recycling old Christmas cards saves you money on landfill tax. Throw them away with general waste and they’ll be sent to landfill or for incineration, increasing how much landfill tax you pay. Recycle them with cardboard and dry mixed recycling and you avoid these costs.

Explore the advantages of recycling

The Christmas tree’s up in the office, the party playlist’s finalised, and the winter wind down at work has well and truly begun. But what’s happening with your business waste collections in December and early January? It might not be at the forefront of your mind, but most companies produce lots more rubbish heading into the year end.

It’s easy to forget about the increases and changes to your waste production and collection needs over the festive period when you get into the seasonal spirit (quite literally at the work Christmas party). Reducing how much commercial waste you create in the run-up to the winter holidays makes managing it much easier – which you can learn about in our guides to Christmas waste.

However, we realise you’ll still produce some amount of rubbish, so it’s important you put in place a plan to deal with it effectively. Use the following tips to tackle your business waste at Christmas with ease.

Bring forward your 
waste collection dates

Will your business be closed for a few days over the Christmas holidays? Then consider moving your waste collection dates earlier to account for this. It’s especially important when you produce more rubbish during this period to avoid it all piling up and sitting there rotting away on the cold dark days and nights.

Dry waste such as cardboard, paper, and metal is fine to leave in secure bins. Other rubbish like food and general waste is best removed and disposed of before your business shuts. If left in your bins for just a few days they’ll start to smell, creating an unpleasant environment for your staff and customers.

What to do with overflowing bins

Recycle the office 
Christmas tree

Many businesses go fully festive and decorate offices, restaurants, and shops with a Christmas tree or three. It creates a wonderful wintery atmosphere but come early January, what do you do with them?

The best thing to do if you’ve put up an artificial Christmas tree is keep it for next year, providing you’ve got enough storage space. Otherwise, donate it to a charity shop and they should sell it in time for next Christmas. For any broken trees, you might be able to get rid of it sustainably with your commercial plastic recycling – just check the type of plastic.

Replanting or recycling is advised when you’ve had real trees decorating your business. You can find out what to do with an old Christmas tree that’s real in our detailed guide. Just remember to remove all baubles, tinsel, and decorations before you recycle any Christmas tree!

Millions of pumpkins are grown, harvested, bought, carved, and thrown away at Halloween every year in the UK. It adds to the scary amount of food waste we already create. But there are all sorts of things to do with pumpkins after Halloween to avoid creating more food waste and adding to landfill levels.

Understanding how to dispose of pumpkins after Halloween helps households and businesses use carved and old pumpkins in a more sustainable way. Simply using the innards of a pumpkin in recipes when carving a pumpkin is a good start – yet more than half of all Brits aren’t aware that pumpkins are edible!

Scooping out the insides of a pumpkin and using them to cook up a soup is one of the best things to do before you start carving your jack-o’-lantern. There are other options for making the most of pumpkins in October before they start to rot. Discover what to do with old pumpkins after Halloween with these ideas.

Are Halloween pumpkins edible?

Yes, all varieties of pumpkins are edible. You can eat carving pumpkins in the UK, but they’re often a bit waterier and stringier than the types grown for eating. Still, you can eat them – just keep the pumpkin cool, check for any bugs, and ideally use it within 24 hours of carving it.

One of the best things to do with pumpkins after Halloween is using the innards and flesh in seasonal recipes. After carving out the insides of a pumpkin, use this bit of the fruit soon after in your baking or store in the fridge for later. A few pumpkin recipe ideas to use as much of the fruit as possible include:

• Pumpkin soup – an autumnal classic, simply boil the flesh with stock and seasoning, then put it in a blender.
• Pumpkin cake – follow a traditional carrot cake recipe but switch out carrot for pumpkin or follow a recipe for the similar pumpkin loaf.
• Roasted pumpkin seeds – scoop out the seeds, dry them off, and coat in your chosen seasoning (salt, chili powder, or herbs for a savoury snack – cinnamon and sugar for something sweet).
• Pumpkin pie – this American fall favourite uses a shortcrust pastry tart case, plenty of sugar, milk, and butter for a tasty treat.
• Pumpkin spiced latte – blend pumpkin flesh to create a puree, then whizz this up with coffee, milk, cinnamon, and maple syrup for a homemade pumpkin spiced latte.

What to do with pumpkins after Halloween for animals

It’s not just humans who can eat waste Halloween pumpkins, they’re also safe and healthy to eat for all sorts of animals. Before feeding one to Fido (or any other wildlife), make sure you remove any paint, ink, or other decorations that could cause illness. Otherwise, there are a few things you can do with pumpkins after Halloween for animals:

• Make a bird feeder – cut the top off your old pumpkin to create a bowl shape and fill with bird seed. Then hang it up in your garden with some strong string or wiring, and check it holds.
• Pass on to your pets – pumpkins are safe for domesticated animals and they’re full of goodness too. Packed with vitamins and fibre makes them great for digestion for dogs and cats. If your pets are fussy, try blending it into a puree and adding to their regular food.
• Donate your old pumpkin – local animal shelters, farms, and zoos may accept your old pumpkins to use as animal feed.

Transforming your home or office into a haunted house means putting up terrifying decorations to get into the spooky spirit. Every year in the UK we spend more than £600 million celebrating Halloween – covering the cost of costumes, décor, food, and drinks. Halloween decorations make up a significant chunk of this amount.

While figures for the UK are currently scarce, trends from the other side of the pond are slowly creeping into our culture. In the USA, 67% of people put up Halloween decorations inside their home, while 61% decorate their gardens and yards. That’s a huge amount of Halloween decorations on display, but what happens to them come November?

A scary amount are thrown away and end up in landfill, but this shouldn’t be the case. Discover what to do with your Halloween decorations to cut down on waste.

Explore our Halloween waste hub

What to do with old Halloween decorations

Where possible avoid throwing your old Halloween decorations away with your general waste. Rather than sending them to landfill or for incineration, there are more sustainable options once October is over. These are three main things you can do whatever materials your old Halloween decorations are made from:

• Put them in storage – Halloween decorations don’t go out of date or deteriorate over time. Store them in a cupboard at home or work so you can bring them out next year to use again, saving money, time, and energy.
• Donate or sell them – if you don’t have storage space or won’t reuse your decorations, donate them to a local charity shop, friends, or family. Alternatively, sell them online or even offer them for free on places like Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree.
• Recycle your decorations – check the materials your decorations are made from and whether you can put them in your household recycling bin. If not, see if you can take them to a nearby recycling centre or arrange collection for recycling from your business.

The amount of extra food, plastic, and packaging waste households produce celebrating Halloween every year is well known. But businesses across the UK are just as responsible for generating lots more rubbish as spooky season starts. Having a sustainable plan in place to deal with and recycle commercial Halloween waste is vital for any organisation.

Think about how many shops, pubs, and offices are decorated in October – almost all of them. Businesses are a big contributor to the thousands of tons of excess waste Halloween generates every year in the UK. It means business owners are in a good position to help reduce and recycle Halloween waste though.

Explore ways to effectively manage and reduce the amount of waste your company produces this Halloween to save money and the environment with these tips.

Visit our Halloween waste hub

Plan your company’s Halloween party perfectly

Workplace Halloween parties are a great socialising and teambuilding opportunity – at a good midpoint between summer and Christmas parties. Plenty of preparation will go into the venue, decorations, food, and entertainment. The more carefully you plan things, the easier it is to limit the waste your company’s Halloween party generates.

Order any food based on the number of attendees to minimise how much might be leftover and cut down on food waste. Use glasses for drinks and any plates and cutlery from your workplace kitchen, rather than disposable plastic cups and plates, to cut down on plastic waste.

Check if you or any employees already own Halloween decorations you can use rather than buying new ones. If not, consider making decorations from materials like paper and cardboard, which can be recycled easily afterwards. You could use such an activity as another teambuilding exercise.

Increase bin collections

As your business may generate more waste celebrating Halloween, it only makes sense that you’ll need to get your bins collected more often. In preparation for producing more rubbish means you can order bigger bins to store it or arrange more frequent collections in October and early November to manage your waste effectively.

Work out what waste types and how much extra rubbish you might produce to avoid overfilling bins and being hit with overweight charges. Aside from recycling, your general waste output may increase and need managing too. Planning extra bin collections in advance avoids waste stacking up on your premises, which may cause safety, hygiene, and unsightly issues.

If you’re just having a Halloween party at work, you might only need to add an extra one-off collection to cover the excess waste created. Should you have a whole month of celebrations planned – including decorations, parties, and dress-up days – you may need to increase your bin collections for a few weeks.

Contact us to adapt your business waste collections for Halloween.

Halloween plastic waste could be the scariest thing about the spooky holiday. Forget the creepy costumes, darker days, and petrifying pumpkins – the increased amount of plastic thrown into landfill around Halloween and its environmental effects are truly terrifying. Decomposing for hundreds of years, leaching chemicals, and releasing greenhouse gases is like something out of a Halloween horror film.

So, what can we do? The rise of plastic use and waste hasn’t gone unnoticed, and many businesses and individual are seeking plastic-free alternatives for their Halloween costumes, decorations, treat, and parties. Find out how much plastic waste we produce at Halloween and ways to cut down this year.

Explore all our Halloween waste guides

Put up plastic free Halloween decorations

Wander round your neighbourhood in October and you’ll likely see gardens full of gravestones, skeletons, bats, and more. What do they all have in common (aside from transforming suburban semi-detached homes into haunted houses)? They’re mostly made from plastic, used once, then chucked in the bin.

Thankfully, there are plenty of non-plastic Halloween decorations you can put up in and outside your home instead. These materials and decorations can then be reused, recycled, or kept for next year. A few ideas for plastic free Halloween decorations include:

• Paper bats and spiders – use black paper or card and cut out spider and bat shapes. Hang them around your home or garden with some twine for a simple yet scary effect. Keep for next year or throw away with your paper or cardboard recycling.
• String spider webs – tie up some string in a simple spider web style or use more black paper to cut one out and stick to your walls, like making paper snowflakes.
• Scarecrow – stuff some old clothes with newspaper, which you can recycle afterwards, and blow up a balloon or use a football for a head to create a scarecrow. Sit it in a chair or wheelbarrow in your garden to creep out any trick-or-treaters.
• Light jars – most Halloween lights are made of plastic. Instead, put a tea light in empty glass jars to form an eerie atmosphere (in or outside). You can always paint the jars if you want and when Halloween’s over, clean them out and recycle the glass.
• Scary signs – if you’ve got some old wooden board or pieces of cardboard, use a red pen or paint to make your own signs with ‘keep out’, ‘turn back now’, and other slogans. Recycle the wood or cardboard once you’re done with them.

Guide to recycling Halloween decorations

Give out plastic free Halloween treats

Sweet and treat wrappers are a real problem at Halloween as most of them are made from a combination of plastic and aluminium. These need separating to recycle each stream individually as plastic and metal waste. However, it’s often either impossible to separate the two or the costs and energy involved are so high that they end up in landfill.

Even Halloween sweet wrappers made from pure plastic might not be recycled if they’re too small to provide value or simply pass through the machines. Those coated in sticky substances and bits of food waste may also be diverted away from recycling to landfill.

The easiest thing to do is provide non-plastic Halloween treats to any trick-or-treaters. Buy sweets in bulk that come in cardboard boxes or glass jars with zero packaging to hand out loose sweets. Other ideas for plastic free Halloween treats include offering home baking, fruit, or paper, foil, or boxed sweets.

It’s estimated that around 33 million people dress up for Halloween in the UK every year. That’s 33 million Halloween costumes worn by children and adults to get into the spooky spirit – from witches and vampires to superheroes and the latest pop culture characters. But what happens to those costumes once November 1^st arrives?

Unfortunately, lots are binned and end up in landfill. Buying a brand-new Halloween costume might be quick, convenient, and ensure you get a high-quality outfit that taps into any topical trends, but it’s another type of fast fashion. Many people wear a costume once then throw it away – and its environmental impact can be scarier than the costumes itself.

Learn all about Halloween costume waste, what happens to it, and ways to reduce it with our ideas for low waste costumes and sustainable disposal.

Visit our Halloween waste hub

How to source low waste Halloween costumes

To cut down on Halloween costume waste, there are other ways to get a petrifying outfit rather than buying brand new. Consider these methods to source a low or zero waste Halloween costume:

• Visit charity shops – second-hand stores and charity shops sell all sorts of clothing you can use to create your own scary outfit. Many also sell preloved Halloween costumes donated by others, for a cheaper and more sustainable choice. Try eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Gumtree for affordable second-hand Halloween costumes too.
• Borrow from a friend – seen someone you know in a fantastic costume? Ask friends and family if you can use it – after all, it’s likely only for one day. You can even repay the favour by lending them your old costume in return.
• Hire a costume – renting a Halloween costume ensures you get a high-quality outfit for an affordable price, and it’ll get used again (after a wash) rather than going in the bin.
• Go DIY – search your wardrobes, drawers, and cupboards for clothes and items to create your own costume. This adds real charm and ensures you’ll be in a totally unique outfit, which you can dismantle and use later.
• Repurpose last year’s – last Halloween was a year ago. Nobody will remember what you went as, so why not just reuse the same costume? Or find a way to turn it into a different character and extend its life.

Zero waste Halloween costume ideas

As long as you don’t throw away anything after wearing your spooky outfit, you’ve got a zero waste Halloween costume. The easiest way to create one is using items you already own that you can clean down after making your costume and reuse. Find inspiration for zero waste Halloween costumes with these ideas:

• Ghost – all you need for this classic costume is a white sheet, dress, or loose white clothing. Rather than ruining a good sheet by cutting two eyeholes in it, stick a pair of sunglasses over the front for a cool ghost. Plus, you still have a usable bedsheet (just it might need a wash).
• Ninja – plain black clothes are all you need to transform into a ninja. A black hoodie and trousers, long black dress or shirt with an additional balaclava, scarf, or bandana for your head can quickly turn you into a deadly assassin.
• Bank robber – what’s scarier than losing all your money? Spending it all on a costume that ends up in landfill. Instead, throw on a striped t-shirt, beanie, and draw on (or grow) some stubble to create an effective criminal costume.
• Skeleton – get a black t-shirt and sweatpants for the base, then draw on bones with white chalk. This should brush off and wash out afterwards, so your clothes won’t be ruined.
• Dracula – unless you’ve got a cape lying about already, fashion one from a small black sheet, towel, or piece of fabric. Wear a smart white shirt underneath and pop on a bowtie to complete the look.
• Clown – you might need to buy a wig, but otherwise mix any brightly coloured clothes then paint your face white with a red nose to become a cheap and cheerful clown (or a sinister one if that’s more your style).

How to have a low waste Halloween

As Halloween creeps closer once again, the excess waste we create celebrating spooky season starts to increase. Every year in the UK we spend a scary £300 million on Halloween – for costumes, decorations, food and drink. A terrifying amount of these items are thrown away and end up in landfill.

Cutting down on waste by recycling and making small changes means you can still have a fun and frightful Halloween while protecting the environment. There are all sorts of low and zero waste Halloween ideas available whether you’re decorating your home, throwing a party, or just taking the kids trick-or-treating.

Use these tips and tricks for a waste free Halloween this year.

Explore our Halloween waste guides

Zero waste Halloween decorations

Just over 2,000 tonnes of extra plastic waste are created every Halloween in the UK. While costumes are the main cause, the other main culprit is Halloween decorations – from lights to plastic and inflatable characters around your garden and home. Most of these are put up once, then binned when November rolls around.

Zero waste Halloween décor helps cut the amount of rubbish produced. Reusing any plastic Halloween decorations you already have and keeping them for future years is ideal. Most of them last for ages, which means you don’t need to buy any more, reducing the demand and avoiding creating extra plastic waste.

Other ideas for zero waste Halloween décor include:

• Making your own zero waste Halloween decorations from old sheets, clothes, and fabric. Easily turn these into ghosts to hang around the house with a bit of creativity.
• Using cardboard boxes, used kitchen rolls, and plastic bottles to create spooky animals such as bats and spiders. When Halloween is over you can simply recycle these materials as normal.
• Buying eco-friendly Halloween decorations that are recyclable – such as paper bunting, signs, and lanterns.
• Create tin can lanterns by punching small holes in the side of a clean and empty food can in the shape of your chosen Halloween character. Then pop in a tea light and place in a safe space for a spooky effect. You can always recycle the can later.
• Spread dry leaves from outside on the floor and surfaces to create an autumnal aesthetic, which you can sweep away and compost at the end.

Guide to recycling Halloween decorations

Pumpkins and party food

A petrifying 14.5 million pumpkins are thrown away in the UK around Halloween every year. They’re often carved up and discarded in a few days, leaving waste companies to deal with a big influx at once. But there are various ways you can cook and eat them to avoid adding to food waste.

Roast pumpkin seeds as a healthy snack, make pumpkin soup, or bake a sweet pumpkin cake (a terrifying take on traditional carrot cake). These all make great options when preparing party food for Halloween or Bonfire night just a few days later.

Try and buy sweet and savoury food in recyclable packaging when planning your Halloween party. Cooking yourself or asking friends to bring a dish or two also reduces packaging. Avoid using plastic disposable cups, cutlery, and plates too – as these can be tricky to recycle – even if the spooky designs fit the theme.

Things to do with pumpkins after Halloween

Facts About Christmas Waste

We all love Xmas day, everyone but the environment. Below we have probably the world’s largest collection of shocking and disgusting Xmas waste facts and figures, how many of them do you contribute to them?

For all things relating to Christmas waste including statistics, visit our Christmas waste hub.

Learn about commercial waste collection and waste disposal.

How to save money on the most expensive outfit you’ll only wear once

Your big day can be one of the most expensive events you’ll ever throw in your life, especially with the UK couples spending on average an eye-watering £27,000 on their nuptials.

This has prompted a new wave of savvy brides on a budget to turn to renting their wedding dresses instead of forking out on a frock they will wear only once.

In fact, UK waste prevention company BusinessWaste.co.uk found that after speaking to 2100 brides to be, 4 out of 10 brides would be willing to hire a dress for the day, with many saying that they would rather put the money towards their future as a married couple.

“It’s crazy how much the cost of weddings has sky-rocketed in the last decade, but there are plenty of ways you can save some money and keep within a smaller budget,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesman Mark Hall.

“Renting a wedding dress is a great way to still look the part but save some precious pennies that could be put to much better use in future married life!”

Bargain bridal ballgowns

Currently, the average UK bride will spend around £1,300 on her wedding dress, which is likely to be the most expensive piece of clothing most brides will ever purchase in their lives.

Hall: “The expectations for couples to throw a lavish event for their friends and family has really put the pressure on them to spend more to thrill and excite guests.

“Years ago it used to be a cheap shindig down the local social club, but now couples are spending a small fortune on venues and dresses to rival what they see on social media and in magazines.”

However, nearly half of brides surveyed by BusinessWaste.co.uk said they would be open to the idea of renting a dress instead of buying it outright, giving reasons such as not wanting to overspend on an outfit they would only wear once, and preferring to save the money for more long-term goals such as travelling or a house deposit.

There’s also the factor that wedding dresses take up a lot of valuable wardrobe space!

Sarah from Doncaster is getting married next year, and says she is happy to rent her dress so she and her partner can spend more on their honeymoon – “I’d rather we made some memories just for the two of us rather than being selfish with the cash and spending it on my dress for the day.”

“Plus we’re trying to save for a mortgage, so financially it really doesn’t make sense to me.”

Myriam is currently looking for her dream dress to rent, “I just think you get more choice, rather than what’s in ‘fashion’ at the moment, so I can get something really unique that will suit my personality.”

“Plus I don’t have to worry about getting it professionally cleaned afterwards or figure out where to store it – I can just hand it back!”

Saving the planet – one dress at a time

Renting clothes is not a new concept, with many online platforms being created so you can hire an outfit for any occasion with ease. Most grooms and best men routinely rent their morning suits, after all.

As well as being easy on the bank balance, renting clothes also has the added benefit of being much more sustainable and ensures fewer garments end up in landfill.

Instead of buying a new item that has used new, raw materials and consumed energy to produce and ship to you, eco-conscious shoppers and brides-to-be are keen to make the most of existing garments in a fight against fast fashion.

With 2 million tonnes of textiles being thrown away each year in Europe, it’s no wonder that there has been a huge rise in people looking to reuse as much clothing as possible to stop perfectly good items from being needlessly thrown away.

But can renting a wedding dress really have a big impact on reducing waste and be better for the environment?

Second-hand wedding dress website Still White believes it can, especially since they have resold over 20,000 dresses – saving over 200,000 kg of carbon emissions and 180 million litres of water being used in producing new garments.

And even the PM’s new wife Carrie Symonds is getting in on the act, with reports that she recently hired her frock for their low-key wedding this year.

Hall: “Hiring your wedding dress can not only save you money, but it can also free up more of your time to enjoy your wedding planning and enjoy your big day, whilst being sustainable and helping to reduce waste at the same time.

“It’s a win-win really, so why not hire your dress and do your bit of the planet – one giant white frock at a time?”

The greenest cities in the world (and the least) – which international cities top the list for recycling and which don’t make the grade

The need for recycling has, by now, been fairly well cemented into the minds of the general public. Citizens the world over are aware of what can and cannot be given a new lease of life through the recycling process, and – in countries where there are recycling schemes available – generally act accordingly.

But alongside individual action is what happens at a bigger scale – in neighbourhoods, cities or countries. The decisions made by policymakers, city planners and governments also affects the recycling rates of our towns and cities; and some cities worldwide are topping the list for recycling with interesting or innovative ways to ensure they waste as little as possible.

Waste collection experts BusinessWaste.co.uk have compiled a list of the fifteen best cities across the world for recycling – including some hidden gems which you may not have heard of – and five which still have some way to go…

The top 15 greenest cities in the world

1. Vancouver – Canada’s shining jewel when it comes to recycling, the city of Vancouver has increased its rate from 40% to over 60% in just over a decade, with a goal of 80%. The city does this by making recycling part of the circular economy and innovative schemes that reward businesses who upcycle or reuse materials.

2. Singapore City – Singapore generates an impressively small amount of landfill waste per person each year – just 307kg, compared with the average of 380kg across the rest of Asia, according to the Siemens Green City Index. It has a goal to recycle 70% of its waste by 2030, and has increased business participation by introducing laws which make companies responsible for the waste they use.

3. Copenhagen – Aiming for an impressive 70% recycling rate, Copenhagen benefits from the Danes’ enthusiastic support for waste reduction (Circular Copenhagen). Door-to-door collections make it as easy as possible for citizens, and Copenhagen is working towards becoming a zero waste municipality by 2050.

4. Helsinki – Despite struggling with waste collections during the frozen winter months, Helsinki recycles a respectable 58% of its waste. The city has been improving its eco credentials – including green taxis – in recent years, introducing schemes to recycle construction waste and adding a much-needed plastics recycling scheme.

5. Curitiba – Awarded the title of Sustainable City in 2010, Brazil’s Curitiba is environmentally focused by design. A piece in Smart Cities Connect has explored how it prioritises pedestrians over cars, has interconnected green spaces, and – most impressively – has a ‘green exchange’ which allows the city’s poor to exchange collected rubbish (two thirds of which are recycled) for fresh food.

6. Delhi – Despite limited resources, the city of Delhi has achieved an enormous amount when it comes to reducing waste. It has created ‘eco-clubs’ in over a thousand schools, impressing the importance of protecting the environment on young citizens and bolstering the city’s existing culture of ‘careful consumption’ and waste reduction policies (delhi.gov).

7. Los Angeles – Famous the world over, this West Coast city is more than just film stars. Los Angeles recycles almost 80% of its waste according to Columbia Climate School – more than most cities in Europe. Led by a city-wide education drive and company tax concessions for recycling, LA remains fully committed to a zero waste initiative.

8. Leeds –  the UK’s own Leeds is impressive when it comes to recycling – around 40% of its waste is diverted from landfill. Its impressive approach to recycling includes the ‘Leeds by Example’ scheme which has placed over 180 on-street recycling points across the city, which have almost tripled recycling rates in the city centre to 49%. The scheme represents the UK’s biggest effort to improve the level of food and drink packaging recycling rates and sets an example which other UK cities hope to emulate.

9. Vienna –  Innovative Vienna is unusual for keeping its waste management entirely within city bounds rather than shipping it elsewhere (Bloomberg) – and since the introduction of recycling plants in the 1980s, recycling containers for metals, plastics and glass are found all over the city. While Austria has some way to go when it comes to recycling on the whole, Vienna is improving each year.

10. Stockholm – Still in the Scandiavian region, Stockholm is an exceptional example of recycling in Europe, having undergone something of a revolution. According to Sweden.se, 50% of its waste was turned into energy in 2019 and 84% of cans and bottles were recycled. Clothing recycling is also a huge part of Stockholm’s economy, with homegrown fashion giant H&M offering garment recycling in the city’s stores.

11. Seattle – One city using tech to tackle waste problems is Seattle, in Washington State. The city’s use of an app called Recycle-It allows citizens to check waste removal dates and set handy reminders, and has helped increase Seattle’s engagement with its compulsory recycling scheme.

12. Songdo – You may not have heard of this South Korean “smart city”, but it’s doing something truly revolutionary with its waste disposal system. As reported in Bloomberg City Labs, a series of underground pipes automatically collect waste and take them to a processing facility nearby, meaning its citizens can have no excuse not to help Songdo meet its recycling goals.

13. Kamikatsu – Okay – so this one isn’t a city, but Japan’s Kamikatsu, a village isolated on the side of a mountain, is widely known as the ‘waste free town’ Due to its remote location, locals separate their waste into a staggering 34 categories to ensure its waste reduction can be optimised without the need for costly (and environmentally-unfriendly) transportation of waste.

14. Ekilstuna – Another little-heard name, but Sweden’s Ekilstuna is one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world overall. Biofuel public transport and low-carbon power plants earn it this title – but the city’s 100% recycled shopping mall, Retuna, where all goods are donated by citizens and resold on, creating a truly circular economy.

15. San Francisco – Of course, the crown of the most recycling-friendly city must go to one which makes mass recycling work on a huge scale. Landfill disposal in the USA’s San Francisco is at its lowest rate ever, reporting that over 80% of its waste is diverted via reduction, reuse, and recycling schemes every year. This makes it one of the most successful cities in the world for reducing waste sent to landfill, using a mix of incentives for citizens and businesses, educational programmes and cleverly-designed recycling systems to top our list.

But what of the cities where recycling is low on the priority list? Despite global efforts to reduce, reuse and recycling, there remain many cities where recycling is yet to become truly embedded in the culture.

The top 5 least green cities in the world

1. Mexico City – While recycling initiatives have been launched in Mexico City, it has yet to run a smooth system and relies on private waste management. The city closed its largest landfill site, where over 70 million tonnes of waste are already buried and causing environmental problems, almost a decade ago, leading to illegal dumping grounds forming and streets piled high with waste. Just 15% of the city’s waste was recycling, leaving much room for improvement.

2. Beijing – In 2017, Beijing, with a population of 21 million, incinerated or sent to landfill almost all (95%) of its waste according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics – a shocking number for a city which has so many citizens. Despite historically poor recycling rates, China’s ban on importing landfill waste from other countries in 2017 has led to improved efforts to responsibly process its own waste, and the only way is up for Beijing’s figures.

3. Kolkata –  India’s Kolkata has recycling rates well below the international average. While India recycles approximately 60% of its plastic waste, the city of Kolkata is growing so quickly that it struggles to implement effective recycling collection and processing, leading to a growing problem with landfill in the area. It’s a problem which faces many fast-developing cities, who are under both ethical and legal pressure to meet increasingly important global targets.

4. New York – It isn’t only developing cities which are wasteful, however. The Big Apple, despite aggressive recycling drives across the city, fail at the most important hurdle – producing less waste in the first place. According to Grow NYC, in 2019 the city’s residents produced 12,000 tonnes of waste per day, which it farms out largely to nearby landfills.

5. Kuwait – Indeed, being an incredibly wealthy city doesn’t mean having a robust recycling programme – despite being in one of the richest countries in the world in terms of GDP, Kuwait City’s citizens generate twice the global average of waste per day and less than 10% of it is recycled. Grassroots movements to improve recycling in the city have been introduced, but it has a long way to go.

Mark Hall, spokesperson for BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“Countries the world over are tackling waste in innovative and interesting ways, but many lag behind. The challenge over the next decade will be bringing all cities to a standard where waste reduction is made part of policy, not merely a target to let slide by – and in the meantime technology and science continue to innovate to make our collective impact on the planet less harmful.

“Some of the best approaches covered in this list are ones which take local requirements and considerations into account – cities and towns working with their specific geography or economic status to improve their approach to recycling. This is something that is key for cities, towns or regions to incorporate into their own waste disposal policies in future, to ensure the best possible uptake and to minimise impact on the local environment.”

The one that was only worn once…

Pampering your pet rotten? That’s great, but those oh-so-funny novelty dog outfits are a huge waste of money and resources. 

While most dog owners treat their pets with snacks and toys, many owners will follow the trend of buying their dogs clothing, as experts predict that the UK pet industry could be worth £2billion by 2023.

Waste Management Company BusinessWaste.co.uk is concerned about how many of these canine costumes are being thrown away, as pet owners splash the cash treating their pups and dressing them up.

“Many of these outfits are one-hit wonders, whether it’s just for a quick snap on Instagram or a family photo,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “odds are the dog hates wearing it, and you’ll never bother with the struggle of getting that pirate outfit back on them again.”

A glimpse inside the ‘paw-drobe’

With hundreds of dog outfits available on the market, BusinessWaste.co.uk asked pet owners about their most memorable pet dressing up experience.

Sarah, Poole: “I’ve spent £100s on clothes for my westie Harry, he looks cute and he loves it. Once the outfit is on, he’s such a diva, especially in his cowboy booties. And he can’t go for a walk without his coat on, he’ll catch a chill.”

Holly, London: “My partner and I have four pugs, and we love dressing them up as the superheroes we named them after. We might have taken it a bit too far when we tried to put a mask on Spider-man and he tried to bite us.”

Nick, Luton: “I buy my dog Wesley a new reindeer costume every Christmas for the family photo. I’d reuse the one from the year before, but he always manages to poo in them. We even put him in a nappy one year to try and stop him ruining another outfit, but history found a way to repeat itself.”

Andrew, Blackpool: “My five stone rottweiler Rover ran away once, and it took us two hours to get him back. One look at the cat costume my wife had bought him, and he bolted. If she really wants a cat she should just go and get one.”

Tracey, Wolverhampton: “By dressing up our staffy Buzz, our family isn’t limited to just enjoying a regular dog. The kids get to play with a spaceman, a dinosaur or even Pikachu. It’s so hard keeping them interested in things, but they’re never bored when they get to dress up the dog!”

It’s not just dressing up dogs in fancy dress that owners enjoy says spokesman Mark Hall, there’s a growing trend in people buying outfits to match with their dog.

In 2019, clothing company Missguided launched a ‘twinning’ pet clothing collection to match outfits to owners, which saw 20,000 visitors visit the range online in the first 48 hours.

“People buy these outfits for the perfect Instagram moment, but it’s not something that the dog wants to be plausibly running around in for much more than a photo,” Says Hall, “with such a focus on sustainable fashion, we need to make sure this extends to four-legged fashion too.”

A new lease of life

While many pet owners think dressing their dogs up is cute, BusinessWaste.co.uk are concerned by the many canine clothes that are being thrown in the bin after just a single wear.

“Seeing as most owners admit to only putting their pup into the outfit once, I’m surprised that a dog outfit rental business hasn’t taken off,” Says Mark Hall, “There would be no waste as clothes can be washed and reused.”

There are plenty of ways dog clothes can be repurposed, as unwanted outfits can be donated to charity shops or to a local dog shelter as long as they are clean and in good repair.

 “We use the warmer clothes such as jumpers for pups who need them, but we also have a lot of fun using the fancy dress outfits for online campaigns and adoption adverts,” says Jo, a volunteer at a dog rescue centre.

“We recently had a family come in to adopt a terrier we put up a picture of dressed up as Elvis. They found the photo hilarious and wanted to take him home.”

Hall says BusinessWaste.co.uk encourages swapping outfits with other pet owners, to reduce the amount of clothing is being needlessly bought, therefore you can get more use out of the outfits with the added bonus of keeping your dog’s Instagram content fresh.

“And if your dog runs out of outfits for Instagram, why not consider dressing yourself up as your dog? You could start a new trend.”

Anything to stop the outfits taking a ‘walkies’ to landfill, we say.

We crumple them, shove them in coat pockets and find them forgotten in shopping bags every day – the humble receipt may not seem like a big problem, but waste collection company BusineseWaste.co.uk says paper receipts should be banned to stop them heading to landfill.

Over 11.2 billion paper till receipts are printed each year by retailers in the UK – a staggering number that generates enough paper to reach to the moon and back. Shoppers are increasingly conscientious about their recycling habits, meaning that a large number of these pieces of paper are thoughtfully discarded into paper recycling. But BusinessWaste.co.uk say this is not quite as helpful as it seems – concerningly, till receipts are not only non-recyclable in most cases, they’re also potentially harmful.

Despite this, UK shoppers are overwhelmingly unaware, with 95% saying they believed receipts were recyclable in a study undertaken by BusinessWaste.co.uk. Just 1% of the 2000 people surveyed knew they were non-recyclable, with 4% unsure either way.

Common responses from survey takers included:

“Yes – it’s paper!”

“If I remember to take them out of my wallet, they go straight in the recycling.”

“I usually chuck them in the on-street recycling bins as soon as I leave the shop.”

Although well-meaning, these shoppers could be adding to a bigger problem – and one which BusinessWaste.co.uk says requires a receipt ban altogether.

About half of receipts are printed of a special type of paper which reacts to heat. The till ‘printer’ contains no ink, but rather heats the paper in the pattern needed to make the text appear: a clever trick, but one which hides a more worrying fact.

This thermal paper contains two chemicals, known as BPA and BPS, which are classed as toxic to people and the environment – so much so, that plastic water bottles are no longer allowed to contain these harmful chemicals, which can cause hormonal changes and have been linked with a risk of cancer. Yet millions of pieces of paper containing both BPA and BPS find their way to both landfill and recycling centres each year – contaminating the other waste or releasing the dangerous chemicals into the air.

Mark Hall, spokesperson for BusinessWaste.co.uk, said the solution is simple.

“We simply need to ban receipts altogether. Most people find them annoying as it is – how often do we throw them in the nearest bin as soon as we exit a shop or, equally wastefully, decline them after they’ve been printed, leaving till staff to throw them away?

“Some retailers have introduced electronic receipts, sent by email, and we think this is a great alternative, particularly as it makes it easier for consumers to find if they did need to return or check the warranty on a product. It could also be done by text or QR code, giving consumers the option to decline the receipt altogether or enter their details to get it sent to their phone or emails.

“For those who need to collect receipts for expense or tax purposes, having digital receipts would save bulging files with scraps of paper for long-suffering accountants to sift through at the end of the year – it’s a win-win. For those who don’t need to save each one, more retailers need to give customers the option to say no to pointless pieces of paper – or offer environmentally friendly alternatives.

“We’re aware that some retailers have shifted towards using a different type of paper in their receipts which is recyclable, but we think this is just creating another form of waste that enters the recycling process: it’s usually entirely unnecessary.”

For when you want to sesh with the squad but still respect the environment

Want to have a drink AND do something good for the environment? While celebrating the hideous goo you find at the bottom of bins?

Boy, have you come to the right place, because two of the UK’s leading waste collection experts have gone into the brewery business together to raise awareness of the impact rubbish has on the planet while delivering tasty, tasty beer.

BusinessWaste.co.uk and Divert.co.uk’s new joint venture, ‘Bin Juice’, contains a range of flavours that aims to get people talking about Mother Nature and being an ethical choice for conscientious consumers by using recycled cans.

BusinessWaste.co.uk company spokesman Mark Hall says, “We’re always looking for new ways to get our eco-friendly message across, and who doesn’t need a drink after the year we’ve all had?”

“So kick back, relax, and get a Bin Juice down you – we’ve got the rubbish side of things covered.”

You’d better beer-lieve it!

The boozy new business venture between BusinessWaste.co.uk and Divert.co.uk has been brewing for a while and aims to get Britain talking about the environment while enjoying a refreshing can of ale.

“I’ve always wanted to make my own beer and this was the perfect opportunity,” says Hall.

“Once we drafted up the name for Bin Juice we knew we were onto a winner – who doesn’t want to drink something with a silly name?”

There’s something for everyone in the Bin Juice range, including the following flavours:

‘The Brown Bin’ – A nice earthy-toned brown ale
‘Hot Summer’s Day’ – A fruity sour beer
‘Black Bags’ – A nice stout
‘The Old Chair’ – A lemon and marshmallow premium flavoured beer
Hall: “All of our booze is completely rubbish-free, there is no bitter aftertaste and you won’t find any bin bags or bits of old chairs in your tinnie.

“The only thing rubbish about this ale is the name.”

The good news keeps flowing, as following Bin Juice’s success, a wine range using recycled glass bottles may be added to the collection.

Hall: “We know beer is not for everybody, so if you prefer wine glasses over beer goggles we’ve got you sorted.

“We’re thinking of calling it Chateau Binbag.

“Who knows, if the wine is a success maybe after lockdown we’ll keep going and open a pub called ‘The Dump’.”

Drinking at home? Yes, you can!

Bin Juice is the perfect beverage for drinkers who want to positively impact the environment, as each drink comes in a recycled can.

80 million aluminium and steel cans are sent to UK landfills every day, creating a mountain of waste that is doing nothing good for the planet.

Divert.co.uk and BusinessWaste.co.uk have tackled this growing problem head-on by recycling old cans for their Bin Juice range, reducing the amount that ends up rotting away in landfill.

Hall: “Each can will be thoroughly sterilised before being repurposed for Bin Juice, so you’ll be happy to know there are no actual bin dregs in your drink.

“All the packaging can easily be recycled again, so the only thing getting wasted is you.”

And if you’ve found yourself drinking more than usual in the last 12 months at home then you’re not alone, as it’s estimated that a quarter of UK adults have reporting drinking more while the pubs have been closed.

UK pub gardens aren’t set to reopen until the 12th of April, with indoor seating not allowed until the 17th of May under the current government roadmap out of Covid-19 restrictions.

And those itching to throw some shapes on the dancefloor in a nightclub will have to wait even longer until the 21st of June when all restrictions are lifted.

“Look, the pubs are shut and you’ve been stuck inside drinking for a year, so why not mix it up and crack open a Bin Juice instead of your usual tipple of choice,” says spokesman Mark Hall.

“Forget about the sticky floors of your local pub during this lockdown, grab a Bin Juice and let the good times flow.”

Why not switch to a plastic-free alternative?

Enough plastic waste to circle the globe twice is the annual result of us cleaning our teeth with toothpaste from tubes that can’t be recycled.

With the global toothpaste industry worth tens of billions per year, one waste and recycling company thinks it’s high time its house was put in order.

The UK’s waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk is concerned about the volume of plastic waste being thrown away due to toothpaste tubes and are calling for plastic free alternatives.

“Toothpaste is an essential hygiene item that people will always buy” says Mark Hall, company spokesman, “however the problem is the packaging; does it really need to come in a plastic tube?”

Brushing up on the facts

We use 300 million tubes of toothpaste every year. Spread end-to-end that’s about 75,000 kilometres of plastic, almost twice around the world. And that’s just users in the UK.

The problem is that they are usually made of different types of plastics, and many brands contain a metal layer inside the tube which isn’t easy to separate.

“A lot of toothpaste tubes have that layer of aluminium in to keep them fresh, but this makes it a recycling nightmare,” says spokesman Mark Hall, “so unfortunately most tubes will end up at a landfill.”

This worries BusinessWaste.co.uk, as on average, it takes 500 years for a toothpaste tube to fully biodegrade in landfill, meaning that every tube you have used in your lifetime could still be out there in a big hole in the ground.

Fortunately, pump-action toothpaste tubes can be easier to recycle, says Hall, but you will still need to check with your local council to see if they can be collected.

Not only are plastic toothpaste tubes bad for the environment, there’s a high chance you might not be getting your money’s worth with up to 10% of the product remaining when you think it’s empty.

“Manufacturers do this on purpose,” says spokesman Mark Hall, “it’s all designed to make you buy a replacement tube sooner.”

“Plastic toothpaste tubes aren’t beneficial for the earth or your value for money.”

Plastic-free solutions

With people growing more concerned about their plastic footprint, many companies are inventing clever solutions to reduce the amount of plastic we throw away, and this includes dental hygiene.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best plastic-free toothpaste alternatives for you to sink your teeth into.

Glass Jars of toothpaste – Many zero waste shops now stock variants on this, either in a powder, or as regular toothpaste in glass jars. The jars can then be reused or recycled.

Toothpaste tablets – These can often just be popped in your mouth and crunched up like a sweet and then continue to brush like normal for pearly white teeth.

Solid toothpaste – You can buy solid toothpaste either on a stick that you apply to your teeth, or as a bar, then brush as usual.

Make your own at home – many websites offer recipes for making your own toothpaste, often including baking soda and coconut oil.

“While you’re at it, why not invest in a bamboo toothbrush or recyclable heads for your electric toothbrush?” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesman Mark Hall.

But if making the change to a plastic-free alternative is a bit much, one toothpaste brand is going the extra mile to reduce the amount of plastic tubes heading to landfill.

Leading brand Colgate have launched plastic-free initiatives, including a new vegan friendly toothpaste that comes in recyclable packaging which is made from the same material as milk bottles.

Colgate have also become part of the Terracycle scheme, where you can take your empty toothpaste tubes and plastic brushes to collection points for specialised recycling, and they can be turned into new items such as park benches.

“As Colgate brush up the competition, one thing’s for sure,” says Hall, “we all need to step up and do our bit to reduce toothpaste tubes going to landfill.”

“Let’s stop filling the earth’s cavities with dental plastic waste.”

To make recycling and disposing of waste easier, many manufacturers now include specific labels on their packaging. This means that whenever a consumer picks up a product, they know exactly what to do with it when they’re finished. In fact, there are several rules and regulations in place that mean these materials must be included in the packaging.

However, while some symbols are very clear in their instructions, others are used less frequently and may be a little harder to understand. That’s where this handy guide comes in!

Recycling Logos

Mobius loop

What to do when you see the Mobius loop logo?

What are examples of waste with the Mobius loop logo on?

How much of this waste is produced?

We produce large volumes of recyclable waste on a daily basis. In the UK alone, we produce around 12 million tonnes of recycling waste each year – which is just under 50% of our overall waste output. However, too often recyclable waste finds its way into general waste collections, meaning it’s disposed of incorrectly. In fact, a recent report by National Geographic found that 91% of plastic waste is not sent to a recycling facility.

Recycle and Rinse symbol

What to do when you see the recycle and rinse symbol

What are examples of waste with the recycle and rinse symbol on?

How much of this waste is produced?

Failure to rinse products before recycling them could mean that your waste is classified as contaminated. This means it may be impossible to recycle. Around 15% of dry mixed recycling bins are contaminated in this manner, which significantly reduces the material that can be recycled.

Recycle, Rinse with Lid Cap on symbol

What to do when you see the recycle, rinse with lid cap on symbol

What are examples of waste with the recycle, rinse with lid cap on symbol?

How much of this waste is produced?

As this kind of waste mainly includes bottles and drinks containers, thousands upon thousands of them are thrown away every day. For example, in the UK alone, around 35 million plastic bottles are used every 24 hours- but the vast majority of them are not properly recycled.

Don’t Recycle and Remove Sleeve symbol

What to do when you see the don’t recycle and remove sleeve symbol

What are examples of waste with the don’t recycle and remove sleeve symbol on?

How much of this waste is produced?

Product packaging, such as sleeves, are used to help promote brand and inform as to what the products we buy are made from – whether they be food items or commercial products. However, they are often difficult to recycle, and as a result, packaging waste is a key contributor to crowded landfills. In fact, plastic packaging makes up for 70% of the UK packaging waste.

Flatten with Cap on recycle symbol

What to do when you see the flatten with cap on recycling symbol

What are examples of waste with the flatten with cap on recycle symbol on?

How much of this waste is produced?

Keeping the cap on your bottles when recycling reduces the chance of the lid getting lost during the recycling process. For example, sometimes, the lids will fall through holes in machinery. Taking the proper steps to recycle this kind of product can reduce the damage that single-use plastics have on the environment. Currently, less than 10% of single-use products are recycled – despite millions of them being used daily.

Recycle at a large supermarket and don’t recycle at home recycle symbol

What to do when you see the recycle at a large supermarket symbol

What are examples of waste with the recycle at a large supermarket with bags symbol on?

How much of this waste is produced?

It is hard to monitor the amount of waste produced in this category, as it covers a wide range of products. However, since their implementation, supermarket recycling points have had a positive impact on the environment by ensuring products that would otherwise be thrown away are now taken to the appropriate treatment facilities.

The Green Dot recycle symbol

What to do when you see the green dot recycle symbol

What are examples of waste with the green dot recycling symbol on?

How much of this waste is produced?

A large proportion of the waste we produce is non-recyclable. For example, in 2018 the UK produced around 37 million tonnes of waste, of which a very small fraction was sent to the appropriate recycling centres. Failing to source recyclable products, or disposing of them correctly, has an increasingly negative impact upon the environment.

Plastic Resin Recycle Codes

There are several different types of plastic, and some facilities will require the plastic to be separated prior to collection. This is due to the fact that each type of plastic will need to be disposed of in a slightly different way.

Code 1: PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate)

PETE plastic (or PET). is the most widely used form of plastic. In fact, around 70% of all plastic bottles and containers in the United Kingdom are made from PETE. Thankfully, it is widely recycled.

Learn about PET recycling

Code 2: HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene)

HDPE was typically used by those who work within the construction industry, as it was used to manufacture pipes. However, it is now also used to create containers such as milk cartons and cleaning product bottles. It is widely recycled.

Learn about HDPE recycling

Code 3: PVC (High-Density Polyethylene)

PVC, like HDPE, is typically used within the construction industry – to create products such as door and window frames. It is widely recycled.

Learn about PVC recycling

Code 4: LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene)

LDPE is often used to create plastic carrier bags and bin bags. Unfortunately, it is the most typically discarded form of plastic – with the world using around 500 million plastic bags each year – of which a small portion are recycled. Thankfully, there are now initiatives in place to recycle the products.

Learn about LDPE recycling

Code 5: PP (Polypropylene)

PP plastics are often used to create packaging, such as plastic tubs and containers, or drinks cartons. It can also be used to create furniture. This type of plastic can be recycled.

Learn about PP recycling

Code 6: PS (Polystyrene)

Polystyrene is sometimes referred to as styrofoam and is used predominantly within packaging, to protect fragile items from getting damaged. Polystyrene is not widely recycled and can pose a real threat to the environment.

Learn about polystyrene recycling

Code 7: Other.

This section holds any type of plastic that does not fall within any of the above categories. It includes items such as fibreglass and acrylic plastic. Whether or not the items can be recycled varies.

Learn about code 7 recycling

Other Important Recycling Symbols

Glass recycling symbol

This symbol is added to packaging to remind consumers that the glass can be recycled after use. It is recyclable, even if the materials contained within it aren’t.

Aluminium recycling symbol

This symbol informs the user that the product is made from recyclable aluminium. For example, this is typically featured on tinfoil packaging.

Steel recycling symbol

This symbol means that the product is made from steel, which can be recycled. This could for example be found on steel cans.

Tidy Man recycling symbol

This symbol was introduced as part of a UK initiative to remove waste from the streets. It is known as the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ scheme, and the inclusion of the Tidy Man on packaging encourages users to safely dispose of the product after use.

Waste electricals recycling symbol

This symbol features prominently on electrical products, such as WEEE Waste – and signifies that they cannot be thrown away alongside your commercial waste.

Compostable waste recycling symbol

This symbol means that the products or packaging can be composted. This could include food waste or garden waste, but also certain types of packaging – which you can dispose of via composting. On some occasions, a slight variation of this logo will inform you whether or not this can be composted at home or at a specialist facility.

Symbol: Forest Stewardship Council

This symbol means that the product has been approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, meaning that it is produced in a way that is deemed environmentally friendly. It typically features on products made from paper, cardboard and wood.

It is important, as a business owner and consumer – that you take the time to fully understand what each of these symbols means. This can help you improve your recycling habits, working towards a better and brighter future.

In fact, there are many benefits of recycling at work. It means that you are cooperating with government-mandated regulations and can demonstrate to your customers that you are committed to protecting the planet. By implementing a strong recycling scheme at work you can also save your company a great deal of money while helping to reduce pollution.

If you’re looking for help with your waste management and disposal, please do not hesitate to get in touch. At Business Waste, we have years of industry experience, which means we are in a prime position to tackle any of your waste management and disposal needs; working to put together a plan that suits you.

Why are you still sending Christmas cards?

It’s time to ban this outdated, wasteful festive pastime

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, trim the tree, stuff the turkey, and reach out to loved ones, but you’re unwittingly wasting literally tonnes of paper through wasteful Christmas cards.

According to Britain’s fastest growing waste collection company, it’s time to ban the old tradition of sending cards, as they are terrible news for the environment.

Christmas grinches BusinessWaste.co.uk say we need a ban on unrecyclable glittery Christmas cards, to go with the self-imposed ban some stores have on Christmas decorations that use glitter.

“We know most people will see us as The Grinch trying to ruin Christmas, but unfortunately for our environment, the season creates a waste problem that lasts all year long,” says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

“The Christmas card tradition has had its day, and now it’s time to make eco-friendly choices during the jolly holidays.”

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

To send, or not to send

The sending and receiving of Christmas cards can be traced back as far as 1843, the same year that Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, and it’s estimated that now around a billion cards are sent every year in the UK.

But unfortunately, the vast majority of these cards end up in landfill, as the widely recyclable cardboard is often contaminated with shiny and glittery decorations.

“People seem to think that sending Christmas cards doesn’t do much harm to the environment because of the perception that all cardboard is easily recycled,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall.

“However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. People chuck their cards into the recycling bin, which causes havoc at recycling centres causing whole loads of paper to be dumped because it’s contaminated with glitter.”

This problem is why leading retailers Waitrose, Morrisons, and John Lewis have banned glitter this year across their own-brand Christmas products, including cards and wrapping paper, as glitter can take hundreds of years to biodegrade.

But not only are Christmas cards awful for the environment, they cost you a small fortune too as the Christmas card industry in the UK worth £1.7 billion, higher than anywhere else in the world.

“By the time you’ve gone out and bought enough to send to everyone and painstakingly handwritten them out, you’re then stung with postage costs,” says Hall.

Hall: “I bet you’ve never considered how much CO2 delivery trucks use to get card up to beloved Aunt Edith 400 miles away, while getting the billion other cards to the right addresses in the same month too!”

Five great alternatives to Christmas cards

For most of us this year, sending a Christmas card is the closest contact we can offer – which is why BusinessWaste.co.uk have come up with some sustainable ideas of how to send Christmas messages to your nearest and dearest.

Make your own cards – Ditch the glitter and get creative using items you might already have laying around your house from last Christmas.
Pick up the phone – Reach out to those you haven’t been able to see this year with a phone call, people will appreciate your time for a catch up much more than a card in the post.
Send an E-card – For the more tech-savvy, why not send a personalised e-card to your friends and family, plus you can send these all around the world at no cost at all.
Use eco-friendly cards – There are plenty of companies offering eco-alternatives to Christmas cards, just make sure they are from a sustainable source, and free from glitter, glue, and foil. And try to hand deliver as much as possible, socially distanced of course!
Donate to charity – Take all of the money you would have normally spent on cards and postage and donate to a charity of your choice on the behalf of your recipients. The money will go much further for a charity than sending a one-off card to your sister.
There is plenty you can do with the cards you might receive this year too, such as reusing the images as gift tags for presents or use them to make your own cards for next year so that they don’t end up in landfill.

Hall: “We need to start viewing Christmas cards as a single-use waste product, because that’s essentially what they are.

“And once we start phasing them out and using alternatives like we have with plastic bottles and straws; it’ll be much cheaper for us and far better for the planet too.”

The disposable spooky season is only scary for the environment

For a year that’s already been quite scary for a lot of people, the spookiest time of year is creeping up on us, and frankly we’re not looking forward to it.

The scary truth about Halloween is that there is plastic hidden in pretty much every aspect of celebration, from shabby costumes to the cheap plastic decorations and sweet wrappers.

All of this plastic pollution has left a sour taste for UK based waste collection specialists BusinessWaste.co.uk, who are calling for a ban on Halloween if it doesn’t become a plastic-free festivity.

“Halloween is one of the biggest events of the year, but the amount of waste it generates is disgusting,” says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

“It’s your choice, either ditch the waste or we will have no choice but to ban Halloween.”

Monstrous materials

One of the most popular ways people celebrate Halloween is by dressing up in ghoulish fancy dress, but how damaging can this be for the environment?

In 2019, it was estimated that 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste would be created by Halloween clothing, which was the equivalent of 83 million plastic bottles.*

As a nation we already throw away 7.7 billion bottles a year**, so the amount of plastic generated from creepy clothing adds an extra layer to an already huge problem.

Not only is buying a new Halloween costume every year bad for the environment, but over the years it starts to add up, so Business Waste are asking the nation to seek other options for fancy dress.

Some alternative ideas for dressing up are:

· Make your own costumes from charity shop finds – See what creative costume ideas you can make using preloved items in charity shops, plus the money goes to a good cause.

· Swap costumes with friends and family – Try switching outfits with friends or family to wear something new.

· Make your own with household materials – Fed up with generic shop bought costumes? Get creative with household items and think outside the box to be really unique.

Hall: “This all goes for decorations as well as costumes, there are plenty of ways you can set the spooky vibe without covering it in a layer of plastic.”

Petrifying plastics

To be able to throw a zero-waste Halloween means finding an alternative way to give out trick or treat sweets, as most come in plastic wrappers.

Hall: Plastic wrappers have to go, and if you can provide an alternative that’s great, especially as giving away so many sweets is only encouraging obesity anyway.

The most eco-friendly way would be to make the switch from wrapped sweets, and there are plenty of alternatives available.

The healthier option is to give away fresh fruit and vegetables, such as carrots or apples, to trick or treaters, but for those with a little bit more time on their hands, why not bake some cookies or brownies to hand out.

“Treat or treat is just awful for the environment, people go out and buy a big plastic bag full of smaller plastic bags of sweets – it’s an environmentalists’ worst nightmare,” says company spokesman Mark Hall.

“All the extra plastic will end up in landfill, that’s if it’s not already been littered somewhere by those who cannot wait to get home before tucking in.”

Carving up a nightmare

After all that, you might think that the most eco-friendly way to celebrate Halloween is to carve a pumpkin, but new research shows that more than half of pumpkins that will be bought for Halloween this year will not be eaten.***

“Pumpkin carving at Halloween is promoting food waste, nothing gets eaten and it gets thrown in the bin,” says Hall.

“There are people starving while people are wasting food as decorations. This behaviour needs to be stamped out.”

Only 42% of those intending to celebrate Halloween this year know that the inside of a pumpkin is edible***, meaning that a mountain of gourds will be heading to landfill.

Hall: “Major changes need to be made, or we will have to ban Halloween to help save our planet.

“The amount of waste just one day creates quite honestly scares the hell out of me.”

With charity shops closed, people have found other ways to get rid of unwanted items.

The great ‘Covid-19 clear-out’ across the UK saw many people who were furloughed or working from home having an almighty sort out of their homes – leaving charity shops bereft of donations.

Now that charity shops are beginning to reopen, UK waste and recycling company BusinessWaste.co.uk has learned that donations have more than halved on previous years, as people are too impatient to wait for them to reopen and have thrown away their potential donations.

“The natural cycle of throwing things out has been shaken up with the Coronavirus lockdown,” says company spokesman Mark Hall.

“Because it’s taken so long to reopen charity shops, three months’ worth of items have ended up in local landfills, or wrapped up as gifts for the poor individuals who’ve had lockdown birthdays.”

The joys of regifting

People have been waiting impatiently for charity shops to return, and it has driven many to throw their unwanted items away at local recycling centres.

In fact, tips were so busy when they reopened in some parts of the UK, local councils have been asking people to book a tip run appointment in advance.

But ultimately this has had a knock-on effect, as charity shop volunteer Wendy tells us: “it’s a shame for us because the government allowed the local tip to be opened before us, so naturally people took all of their stuff there.”

But some of the lucky items that weren’t slung into a giant bin at the tip have found themselves in the reluctant hands of family and friends.

UK based waste specialists BusinessWaste.co.uk asked people online about regifting during the lockdown, and it turns out some have absolutely no shame in offloading their junk onto their loved ones:

• “I had the worst birthday ever in lockdown, all of my family just gave me their old junk. My grandad gave me a dictionary that was printed in 1983, and all the pages with naughty words on them were ripped out so I couldn’t even get a laugh out of it.” – Chris, Leicester
• “I sent my niece some bits for her birthday through the post, including a toiletry set I got for Christmas. But because I’d opened it and used a little of the moisturiser before I decided to give it away, it leaked all over the place and ruined everything in the box.” – Jill, Weymouth
• “My brother gave me some DVDs, and to be honest I was looking forward to watching Fight Club until I opened the case and found the disc for The Sound of Music instead. To be fair, there were a few fight scenes towards the end, so it wasn’t a complete loss.”- Jack, Taunton
• “Bath salts? No thanks” – Vic, Basingstoke

When the doors do not reopen

For some charity shops in the UK, their donation days may be over.

Charity shops have only recently reopened on 15th June after almost three months of being closed, meaning that a lot of charities have lost out on a quarter of the year’s potential takings.

Charities such as Cancer Research are predicting a decline in fundraising income by 25%, and Oxfam has been losing £5million a month in revenue with all their shops closed.

Age UK have announced that they will have to make some staff redundant as they prepare to close stores, and one branch of The Wessex Cancer Trust in Cosham is only reopening its doors for a large clearance sale before shutting up shop for good.

Mark Hall: “It’s such a shame for these shops to be closing, but without donations, fundraising and sales, they cannot afford to continue.”

But the shops that are reopening will gladly take any donations, and to reassure customers that they are safe from contamination, all donations will be quarantined for three days and disinfected before going on the shelves.

If you’re unsure if your local charity shop is accepting donations, BusinessWaste.co.uk recommend calling ahead to ask them instead of assuming they don’t want your stuff and dumping it.

Hall: “You never know, someone out there might be desperately searching for your unwanted copy of Robbie Williams Greatest Hits.

“OK, perhaps not.”

Also, please don’t use someone’s garden as a toilet

With public toilets as well as loos in pubs and shops being closed during the Covid-19 outbreak, there’s been an outbreak of what can only be described as “fly peeing”.

In the true nature of ‘if you got to go, you got to go’, waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk are hearing reports of people turning local beauty spots into public bathrooms, and increasing numbers of bottles of urine appearing along main UK roads.

“Easing of lockdown measures means that people are venturing out for day trips, but unfortunately many councils haven’t reopened their public toilet facilities due to social distancing measures,” says company spokesman Mark Hall.

“Instead, people are fly-tipping UK roads with bottles of wee – perhaps we ought to rename this environmental crime fly-peeing.”
“Can’t you tie a knot in it?”

One group that have been a constant on our roads during the lockdown are the delivery drivers who have been delivering essential items up and down the country, but Business Waste have heard from many admitting they have resorted to using plastic bottles as a substitute toilet.

Many truckers are concerned about not being unable to stop due to a lack of open facilities, or being too frightened to stop at services and potentially risk catching Covid-19.

And that’s led to the hideous sight of plastic bottles full of pee in laybys up and down the country. And to be fair, it’s not only truck drivers, but regular drivers too.

Trucker Mark Taylor of Addingham tells us: “I’m old and my bladder isn’t as strong as it once was, but I haven’t been able to stop for a wee because most services have been shut.
“I’ve had to pee in my Lucozade bottle, but it tends to get a bit smelly in the cab, so I’ve thrown a few bottles out of the window.”

But not all drivers are participating in this behaviour, with delivery driver Eric telling us, “I’ve got a plastic-free reusable bottle that cost me twenty pounds – I would have to be really desperate to use that for a urinal and throw that kind of money away.

“Just pick your spot and go behind a tree, like normal people.”

Mark Hall of BusinessWaste.co.uk says, “Just because the toilets are shut and desperate times are leading to desperate measures, we still need to not be adding to the plastic pollution problem by chucking bottles out of the window.”

“Some for waste disposal operative’s got to go out and pick up all those stinking bottles. Take your litter home, you animals.”
It’s not just the pee – it’s also the 35m plastic bottles being thrown away every year in the UK.

“Plastic bottles can take up to 450 years to biodegrade, so if you’re chucking one out of the car window full of wee it could be sitting there for years,” says spokesman Mark Hall.

“There’s poo in my front garden”

The imminent reopening of public toilets comes too late for beauty spots around the UK.

One of many reports comes from a care-worker in Burnham-on-sea in Somerset, who says she has had to battle countless people urinating and defecating in public, with several incidences happening against her garden fence.

Hall: If the toilets are closed, then desperate people will go wherever want, which unfortunately spoils the area for local residents.

One lady in a resort in Dorset says: “People are travelling the length of the country for a day at the beach, meanwhile those of us who live here have to put up with the horrible sights and smells they leave behind. I found human poo in my front garden, and next door found a bottle full of wee in his recycling bin.”

Hall: We’re not the police, but we have to remind people that it is illegal to be caught urinating in public and that if you’ve been seen in the act you could be done for indecent exposure too.
“All I can suggest is what I tell the kids – make sure you’ve been to the toilet before you go out. Or tie a knot in it.”

It’s time to clean up our binning habits

With the world’s focus firmly fixed on the Covid-19 virus pandemic, maintaining perfect hygiene has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

However, a national waste company notes that while people are following the advice of healthcare officials, the resulting waste may not be doing much good for the planet.

Waste Collection experts BusinessWaste.co.uk has lifted the lid on the fact that with more hand sanitisers and liquid soaps being used, these single-use plastics are not always being efficiently recycled.

“Although it’s fantastic to see that people are really taking personal hygiene seriously, we have a duty to fulfil to our planet,” says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

How to tackle the plastic problem

The bottom line is that we all need to make sure that we are recycling as much as we can.

But with the nation buying every single bottle of liquid soap and hand sanitiser it can lay its hands on, BusinessWaste.co.uk sees up to 10 million empty bottles ending up in already stretched landfill sites.

“Times may be frightening and confused for many individuals during the COVID-19 outbreak, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into the bad habit of just chucking everything into the general rubbish,” says Mark.

“With everything currently up in the air, it’s understandable that recycling practices may not be everyone’s main concern right now,” says Hall, “but we need to make sure we continue recycling for the future.”

Most households and businesses now separate their rubbish into recycling bins – but the worry is that this will become seen as unimportant as people worry about their health.

And it’s feared that levels of recycling will drop during this global pandemic, says a concerned Mark Hall, but we have to keep stressing to people that as they use more hand sanitiser and soap, these plastic bottles could infesting the planet long after Coronavirus is gone.

“We don’t want one of the lasting legacies of Coronavirus to be the vast number of hand sanitiser bottles polluting our oceans and piling up around the world, but unfortunately it will be if we don’t act now.”

Recycle and shop smart – it’s really that easy

Plastic bottles are one of the most commonly recycled waste products, but it is important that they are recycled correctly. Fortunately, this is an incredibly simple process.

• Wash out the bottle to remove all residue and avoid contamination
• Take the cap off of the bottle, as different grades of plastic will be recycled separately
• Make sure soap bottle pumps are removed as they are not currently recyclable in the UK
• Place the bottle into your recycling bin ready for local collection

“If the hand sanitiser you’re carrying around in your bag runs out, we understand that the easiest thing to do is chuck it into the nearest bin,” says spokesperson Mark Hall, “but really the best thing you can do is to take it home, rinse it out, and recycle it. The environment will thank you for it.”

Another recycling method that BusinessWaste.co.uk hopes people will make use of is to refill existing plastic bottles once they’ve been rinsed out, to reduce the demand of manufacturing more plastic that could otherwise end up in a rubbish tip.

With the rise of local ‘zero-waste’ shop, it’s easy to find out where you can take your own containers and reuse them to stock up on cleaning essentials such as detergents, surface cleaners and soaps.

Soap manufactures Carex have recently launched a scheme which aims to get people to reuse their existing soap bottles. Refill pouches of soap can be purchased to fill soap pumps, and the pouches can be recycled through local Terracyle collect points, which can be easily found online.

“You can also buy bars of soap, which are just as effective at keeping your hands hygienically clean and have the added benefit of often not coming in plastic packaging,” says Hall, “Plus you’re bound to have a stash laying around from years of Christmas gift sets from your nan.”

So, while the world scrubs up, it’s important to remember the impact that plastic sanitizer and soap bottles will have in the future, and that we have to do something now to avoid millions of unnecessary bottles being dumped into landfills.

“We need to make sure that not only are we looking after ourselves, we need to be doing it in a responsible way that looks after the environment.”

As people overstock, bins are overflowing

As people prepare to self-isolate to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, many are afraid that they will run out of everyday essentials.

But as people flock to the shops to fill their cupboards, is this doing more harm than good?

BusinessWaste.co.uk, a national waste collection company, warns that panic buying will result in more food being thrown away as people are buying far more than they need.

“At the moment there is a huge strain on supermarket supply chains to ensure there is enough food to go around during these difficult times,” says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

“People should only buy what they need, otherwise they will only be throwing a lot of it away when it all goes out of date. There’s only so much you can eat.”

Greed in the aisles, bare shelves and full fridges

Fears of being housebound for the foreseeable future are causing people to fill up their cupboards, fridges and freezers in a bid to make sure they don’t run out of food.

“Coronavirus is sending people into an overbuying frenzy,” says Hall, “They’re wasting money on things they don’t even need or want, and it’ll only end up in the household bin.”

Hall explains that you only need to see the empty shelves of your local supermarket to understand the extent of the problem.

“I went into Waitrose and got the last pot of hummus, but the olives were already gone”, says shopper Steven from Harrogate, “What if I want to throw together an impromptu mezze board?”

Susan, a mother of three from Chesterfield, who was searching her third supermarket of the day for supplies sums up the national mood: “I’m only stockpiling because everyone else is. If I don’t get as much as I can when I see it, who knows when I’ll be able to get hold of it again?”

But as some clear the shelves and overfill their cupboards, Business Waste are concerned that others will be unable to get hold of basic supplies, which is why they are recommending that shoppers only buy what they know they will use in sensible quantities.

“Some people cannot spend more than a set budget every week, therefore are unable to buy in bulk,” says Hall.

“It’s not fair to these people to excessively fill up your cupboards with fifteen bags of potatoes and a month supply of bread which goes in the bin, when the likelihood is that most of this food will end up in landfill anyway. If everyone only buys what they need, then we can massively reduce the amount heading into the trash.”

Should we be limiting how much food we buy?

Many supermarkets have recently taken action to try and prevent stockpiling, by introducing war-like rations on how much people can buy.

Supermarkets such as Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have restricted shoppers to a certain amount of each item, including everything from groceries to toiletries, in a bid to stop stockpiling and in due course a huge volume of waste.

As BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall points out, these policies will be pivotal to making sure that people get the resources they need, without there being an increase in waste.

UK supermarkets are also introducing schemes to make sure that vulnerable customers can come in and safely get their shopping, such as only opening for the first hour to the elderly.

But as Hall highlights, it’s not just the elderly we need to be considerate of, it’s people with dietary requirements as well.

“I can’t drink dairy, and everyone has been buying all the milk alternatives,” says Ben, a worried shopper from Woking. “What am I supposed to do?”

“All the gluten free stuff’s gone,” Laura of Reading says. “I’m coeliac – help, anybody?”

“We need to be mindful of others when we shop,” says Hall, “We need to leave enough for other people and not just buy it all and shove it into freezers. You could be denying a neighbour of something they desperately need.”

“It’s much better to make sure there’s enough food for everyone, than to buy too much and chuck it in the bin.”

And remember, if you do still have food scraps, at least make sure it is recycled with household food collection schemes, or better still, compost it.

As supermarkets struggle to fulfil demand, calls for unwanted food to be redistributed.

As people prepare to stay at home for weeks on end, many businesses are feeling the full force of the Covid-19 pandemic as they close their doors to the public for the foreseeable future.

Establishments such as hotels and restaurants will see their fully stocked kitchens potentially going to waste while supermarket shelves are being laid bare on a daily basis.

This irony is not lost on BusinessWaste.co.uk, a UK commercial waste collection company, who feel that these hospitality kitchens may be an untapped resource in our time of need, and calls for the sensible redistribution of unwanted food.

“Supermarket shelves are being ransacked everyday as people frantically stockpile, meanwhile there’s plenty of food sitting in unused kitchens,” says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

“Surely hospitality businesses need to be making this food available to the public, otherwise much of it will go out of date and end up in the bin, which would be such a waste.”

Checking out, not chucking out

Restaurants, hotels and cafes are now switching their food service to takeaway status, but business is set for a nose-dive.

Many businesses pride themselves on serving fresh foods, but with no one to eat them a huge amount of food looks like it will definitely be going to waste.

Felicia is a chef from a top hotel, and she worries about the amount of food left behind as her employers ended trade this week. “As we hung up our aprons at the end of the last shift, I left knowing that all of our freezers had been recently completely filled, and that the fridge was rammed with fresh ingredients.”

“A few of us took bits home, but I know that when I go back, I’ll have to throw a disgusting amount of food away. It’s just not right.”

The hospitality sector already produces 920,000 tonnes of waste a year in the UK (that’s enough for 1.2bn meals – Source: WRAP), and this number looks likely to increase due to the waste that will be created by so much uneaten food during this outbreak.

“All of this comes at a time where fights in supermarket aisles become a daily occurrence, as people scrap over the last precious tins of tomatoes and fresh loaves of bread, which goes in the waste collection bin, blissfully unaware that the closed-down businesses they drove past on the way may have everything they were looking for in their kitchens and stockrooms”, says company spokesperson Mark Hall.

“There’s a large amount of food sitting around not being eaten which is crazy in this time of need, so why shouldn’t people be able to get their hands on it before it perishes?”

Raiding the cupboards

Business Waste conducted an online questionnaire to find out what the public thinks would be the right thing to do with this hidden supply of food. The results ranged from practical, to practically ridiculous.

• Amanda, Falmouth: “It would be such a shame to see all this perfectly good food going to waste. I think they should be opening their doors to the most vulnerable like the elderly and the disabled and let them come in and take the food. They’re the ones missing out while everyone else is playing supermarket sweep.”
• Ethan, Hastings: “Why are we trying to take away from businesses here? They should be shoving it all into freezers, so they have stock when this pandemic is over, it’s not our right to be claiming dibs on whatever they’ve got.”
• Tony, Chester: “First come, first serve. That’s the motto I live by. First one there gets dibs on the goods. I’m hoping for a few months’ worth of free Nando’s out of this.”
• Tanya, Hull: “Why can’t they arrange a soup-kitchen kind of set up for the homeless. They rely on donations for food, and people are hardly going to be donating while they’re selfishly stockpiling are they? It makes the most sense to me.”
• Imran, Aberystwyth: “The government needs to get involved here. Maybe put all the food into a giant central reserve, and then they can dish it out equally to every person in the country like wartime rations.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall: “We still have time to make use of this food, we just need business owners to come forward and help out in our time of need.”

“Food is meant to be eaten, not thrown away, the amount of perfectly good food we are collecting at the moment is utterly sickening.”

Charity shops lift the lid on some of the strange stuff they’ve received

The staid and dependable world of charity shops hides stock rooms filled to bursting point with the horror and the turmoil of strange donations.

While most of us see quiet shops filled with quality second hand clothing, bric-a-brac and a million copies of “Fifty Shades” books, behind the scenes there are volunteers wondering whatever bonkers item they’ll find next among donated goods.

UK waste collection company BusinessWaste.co.uk, which works closely with charity shops to encourage reuse, and to ensure that the minimum possible items go to waste, asked workers and volunteers to list their weirdest finds, and they did not disappoint.

“It’s safe to say that some people think charity shops will take any old tat, no matter how damaged for tasteless,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesman Mark Hall, “luckily we’re here to take these things off their hands so they can be recycled for disposed of properly.”

A delve into the stockroom

BusinessWaste.co.uk asked workers at charity shops throughout the UK to list the weirdest, most disturbing, or funny items they’ve come across from public donations.

• A taxidermied owl, clutching a taxidermied mouse (“We weren’t even sure if that kind of thing is legal these days”)
• “Far too many” wedding photo albums
• A blood-stained wedding dress (“I wouldn’t have liked to have been at that reception”)
• 30 self-portraits of the same man (“He kept coming back into the shop to see if anyone had bought one. They had not”)
• A “really terrible” portrait of Princess Diana (“She looked like she’d just swallowed a wasp. Several wasps, the poor love”)
• A VHS tape of the A-Team TV series, but closer inspection revealed it to actually be an episode of Lovejoy (“Still a major win as far as we are concerned”)
• Dirty, stained bedsheets (“Come on folks, it’s not beyond the realms of decency to give them a wash before you donate them, is it?”)
• A Monopoly set with real but out-of-date bank notes inside (“We tried to track down the donor, but in the end The Bank of England were quite happy to exchange them for a good cause”)
• Several tins of octopus, apparently from somebody’s holiday in Spain (“We don’t accept food donations, but they thought we could raise – ha ha – up to six squid from them”)
• A sealed box with something rattling inside. The donor said it was cursed. (“Thanks for that, we’re not a personal exorcism service, we just raise money for the hospice”)

BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall reveals: A lot of the charity people said they know all about Facebook groups featuring wild charity shop finds, but items that don’t make it to the shop floor go right off the scale compared to what appears on social media.

“I’m told that in many cases, the charity has its own reputation to think about. They’ve strict rules about shoddy goods and electricals, but they’ve also their own way of doing things when it comes to taste and decency. For example…

“What can a charity shop do with a suitcase full of porno magazines? The answer to that is stick it in the recycling like the donor should have done in the first place,” he says.

Making the best of it

And that’s where companies like BusinessWaste.co.uk come in.

“We already have a working relationship with many charity shops as part of their commercial waste disposal obligations,” says spokesperson Mark Hall, “so we go the extra mile helping them dispose of the strange stuff they receive.”

Hall says that BusinessWaste.co.uk encourages reuse and recycling, and in most cases charity shops represent the face of making the best of second hand goods up and down the country. This is especially so when they get nothing but one particular item in their donations, which they know they’ll never be able to shift.

“It used to be Dan Brown books, but now it’s Robbie Williams CDs and Fifty Shades, and all those copycat erotic novels,” says Mark Hall. “At one point most shops literally had boxes full of unread Fifty Shades, and books are particularly difficult to recycle because of the glue they use in the spines.

“We heard of one shop that made a very sturdy desk out of several dozen Fifty Shades books and a donated kitchen work top. That’s brilliant recycling,” Hall said.

The real problem, though, is dealing with hazardous donations.

“It’s when they need to get rid of something out of the ordinary from people who see charity shops as some sort of free rubbish skip that we really need to step in,” he says.

It’s not unusual for charities to find completely unacceptable items among their donated goods – car batteries, chemicals, half-used tins of paint and dozens of fluorescent strip lights. They need specialist disposal, and that – in the end – hits charities in the pocket.

And that’s led to this appeal from BusinessWaste.co.uk: “THINK about what you’re giving to charity. In the end you end up costing them money for something you should have dealt with yourself.

“Let charity shops get on with what they do best – raising money for good causes. They’re not your personal rubbish service!”

“But we’re quite interested in that cursed box. As a present.”

Fly-tipping: Let’s call it ‘Environmental Terrorism’ from now onIt’s time to label these criminal gangs for what they really are.

Fly-tippers who destroy local beauty spots and hand huge clean-up bills to councils should be called out as environmental terrorists and treated as such.

That’s the opinion of a nationwide commercial waste collection company, which has had enough of seeing hazardous materials dumped at the side of the road by people who lack any sort of moral code.

UK based BusinessWaste.co.uk says that the “fly-tippers” label is far too bland for the danger and destruction they cause, and a stronger term is needed as we head into a global climate emergency – especially as it emerges that organised crime is behind many large dumping incidents.

“We don’t think it’s too over-the-top calling these criminals ‘environmental terrorists’,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “They damage local communities and the countryside, and we need to make it a truly shameful crime, with truly fitting punishments”.

The cost of fly-tipping

According to UK government statistics* there were over one million fly-tipping incidents in England alone in the year 2018/19.

Fly-tipping is becoming a national epidemic, with incidents increasing by 8% year-on-year
The clear up cost for incidents classed as a “large lorry load”, which comprised only around 3% of all incidents, was £12.9m.
One third of incidents were classed as “small van load”, which points to rogue traders dumping their waste instead of paying rubbish tip charges
Councils managed to issue 76,000 fixed penalty notices to fly-tipping offenders, while another 2,000 people were fined in court, raising some £1m – that’s an average fine of just £500.
“It’s infuriating,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall, “These stats show that there are many people who are willing to risk a relatively small fixed penalty rather than pay gate charges at council waste facilities.

“And despite the increase in people getting caught, the figures show that they get away with it nine times out of ten.”

Now that it has emerged that a huge increase in large dumping incidents is the work of organised criminal gangs setting up fake waste removal companies**, it’s time to take a different tack and hit them with the full force of the law, with punishments to fit.

This is especially urgent as unscrupulous gangs offer services claiming they remove and dispose of hazardous waste such as chemicals and asbestos, putting public health and the environment at risk in the name of short-term profit.

Why is fly-tipping an act of terrorism?

Fly-tipping isn’t just an ugly blot on the landscape.

Fly-tipped rubbish often contains chemicals and hazardous waste that needs to be dealt with safely.
Dumping this waste in the countryside risks wildlife and water tables, and has serious long-term effects.
Dumping this waste in urban areas like housing estates and alleyways risks the health of the public, especially inquisitive children.
“Fly-tippers don’t care about this, they’re only interested in the bottom line – their bank balance,” says Mark Hall.

“They may think of it as purely a business transaction, but it’s an act of terrorism against everyone and everything decent in this country.”

Punishments to fit the crime

BusinessWaste.co.uk appreciates the fact that courts can issue unlimited fines on environmental criminals who fly-tip their waste. However, the average fine is only £500, which would been seen as an acceptable risk for the offender.

But only 0.2% of offenders end up in court facing a fine, the majority (and that’s still only about 8% of all incidents) receiving a fixed penalty notice. The vast majority of cases remain undetected.

That’s why BusinessWaste.co.uk wants these criminals to be called Environmental Terrorists, with punishments to match.

Prison sentences
Community clear-up punishments
Awareness courses, paid for by the offender
And if we wanted to go a bit medieval, there’s also

The stocks, to be pelted with rubbish
A walk of shame dressed as a bin
“We’re not seriously suggesting the stocks and public shaming,” says Mark Hall, “But now is the time to ram home the idea that fly-tipping is a crime against the whole community”.

It’s time to call out these people and shame them into changing their ways.

Over a billion journeys, but customers only get a single waste bin

Thousands of tonnes of rubbish which could have been recycled go straight to landfill every year because of a lack of recycling available on Britain’s trains.

There are over a billion and a half individual rail journeys in the UK every year, with passengers generating tonnes of waste products which are never recycled, a national waste company says.

That’s all because of a lack of choice on trains, says waste disposal experts BusinessWaste.co.uk

“Network Rail and the train franchises say they’re proud of the recycling records,” says company spokesman Mark Hall, “but the lack of on-board choice gives an empty ring to their words. They need to do more.”

Train drain

According to the Office of Rail and Road, rail passenger journeys rose to 1.759 billion in 2018-9.

And tens of millions of these journeys inevitably create some sort of on-board waste, BusinessWaste.co.uk says.

Among this rubbish, you’ll find food wrappers, food waste, newspapers and magazines, plastic drinks bottles, drinks cans, and the general detritus that comes with sitting in a railway carriage for any period of time.

“As you can see, it cries out to be recycled, but it all goes into the single general waste bin that you see on most trains and rail platforms which is never going to be recycled,” BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall says.

That means there’s no inclination from the rail companies to separate this waste, so it all heads straight to landfill as general waste: “Nobody wants to fish apple cores and banana skins out of a plastic sack of old newspapers,” Hall says.

“That’s a direct cost to the rail companies as Landfill Tax, a cost that’s inevitably passed on to passengers. And it’s also a cost to us all as wasted resources,” he says.

Passengers want to recycle

There is a will among rail passengers to recycle their on-board waste.

BusinessWaste.co.uk conducted a survey of 1500 rail passengers, and found:

82% of passengers would recycle their waste on board or on the platform if facilities existed
Only 9% of passengers say they take their recyclable waste home to put in their own bins
Alex from Basingstoke, who has a season ticket on South Western Railway is typical of views we heard: “I’d love to recycle things into different bins, but we only get the one on Class 450s. It’s a pain, but I’m not so passionate about it to carry a bag of rubbish to work or back home.

“I suppose we’re lucky to get bins at all,” he told Business Waste.

And that’s true – it wasn’t so long ago that you’d be hard-pushed to find any sort of bin on the railways, the result of Irish Republican terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s which found easy targets in bins and toilets on the UK’s railway networks.

But times change, and people want bins and more of them: “Once again we see a willingness from people to recycle if they get the chance and if it’s convenient,” says Mark Hall.

“And also, we see that people don’t tend to recycle if there’s an immediate inconvenience, such as taking their rubbish home with them.”

Train of thought

BusinessWaste.co.uk wants train franchises to rethink their rolling stock and allow at least rudimentary facilities for recycling.

“Even if it’s a receptacle for free newspapers in the carriage vestibule, that would be a start,” says Mark Hall.

Free newspapers comprise the huge majority of train refuse, especially on rush hour services.

On long-distance, daytime and late evening routes, that rubbish is more likely to be food waste, and – again – there’s no way to dispose of drinks cans and plastic bottles separately.

“It doesn’t take much of a train of thought to boost recycling rates on trains at all,” says Hall.

“Although there might be initial costs refitting rolling stock and platforms with suitable receptacles, they will pay for themselves reasonably quickly with reduced Landfill Tax payments.”

It makes sense, and it’s what people want.

Here’s why you shouldn’t be tempted to this shocking addition to disposable culture

In the long and not particularly distinguished history of terrible Christmas gifts there has rarely been a product so pointless and environmentally damaging as the disposable phone charger.

That’s the professional opinion of a British waste and recycling company which is equally alarmed and disappointed at finding these use-once-then-bin devices are still on sale as impulse purchases on supermarket tills.

According to UK based BusinessWaste.co.uk, disposable power banks are another symptom of the disposable culture in which we’re living.

“We’re shouting from the rooftops to try to get people to stop being wasteful,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “And then these things come along literally encouraging people to think short term. What’s going on?”

Everybody needs to charge their phone, right?

Available for as little as three pounds, the disposable phone chargers come with sufficient power to recharge most mobile devices.

They look the ideal Secret Santa gift or stocking filler for somebody who is always looking for somewhere to charge their mobile phone.

And who doesn’t need an emergency hit of power when the “battery low” alert comes on when you’re in the middle of an important WhatsApp conversation? We all do, so we hunt around for a friendly power socket or charger to get that battery percentage back into the green.

And there, on the supermarket till, it’s winking at you: Three quid, directly into the charging port. Oh yeah.

But they come with a hidden cost: Each one comes with a lithium battery inside.

A lithium battery that is used once and then thrown away.

“Lithium batteries are rechargeable,” says Mark Hall, “which makes it even worse”.

And as only a fraction of the UK’s electronic waste is recycled, you can lay very good odds that thousands of these devices end up in landfill alongside the other 50 million tonnes of this country’s e-waste.

“They’ve been around for a couple of years now, and we’re dismayed that you can still get them from major retailers,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall. “And they’re available on online tat market Ebay for pennies, too.”

Literally for a few pounds extra, you can buy a reusable power bank, which – with a little love – can give you hundreds of uses before it goes to the big recycling centre in the sky (via your local council small electricals bin).

You just want to rob us of our right to 100% battery, then?

Nothing of the sort. With a little bit of what people call “getting your life in order”, you need never have a flat phone battery.

• Get a multi-use recharger. They are dirt cheap, are available everywhere, and last for ages. The perfect Secret Santa gift or stocking filler.
• Carry a plug and charging lead. There are plugs everywhere these days. Coffee shops are falling over themselves to give you somewhere to get that sweet, sweet electricity while you enjoy an Americano and a cake.
• See also buses, trains, burger bars, pubs, hotels. They all want your custom and the charging point is the new customer loyalty gimmick.
• Use your phone less. No, really. You can do it. Be brave.
The message is simple, says Mark Hall of BusinessWaste.co.uk. “The planet doesn’t need thousands of single-use batteries dumped in holes in the ground.

“We care about the environment, and the damage that we’re doing to it through single-use plastics and electronics is a disaster.

“Don’t give these useless devices as presents.”

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

Here’s why your Christmas countdown is a single-use plastic nightmare

In the next few days, millions of children – and quite a few adults – will open the first window on their advent calendars without a second thought of the mountain of waste to which they’re contributing.

One of Britain’s top waste and recycling companies estimates that there are 16.5 million advent calendars containing single-use plastics out there this year, which will be impossible to recycle and will end up either burned or dumped in landfill.

And, according to UK based BusinessWaste.co.uk, well-meaning attempts to recycle them mean that genuinely recycled waste will be contaminated, making the situation worse.

“Once again, we’re going to be the Grinches who stole Christmas”, says BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall, “We’re the guys who are taking this one little bit of Yuletide joy and make you feel bad about it.”

It’s just cardboard and chocolate. What’s the problem?

It’s not just cardboard and chocolate, and there is a problem, says BusinessWaste.co.uk.

And with 16 and a half million advent calendars out there – more than enough laid end-to-end to stretch from London to the North Pole – that’s an awful lot of used calendars going into the bin once the Festive Season ends.

BusinessWaste.co.uk explains: Long gone are the days when kids would open the window on their card-backed advent calendar to see the picture hidden behind.

“We’re a society based on instant gratification – we want MORE,” company spokesperson Mark Hall explains, “That means advent calendars with even better gifts inside. Lovely.”

Now the vast majority have a chocolate or some other gift behind the door, and that’s where things have got complicated.

“They’ve added plastic and silver foil to the mix,” says Hall, “and because they’re glued together that’s made it expensive to recycle.”

It is – he says – a single-use plastic nightmare where it’s difficult to separate the two, meaning it’s more economically viable to either burn them or dump them straight into landfill.

“And frankly, neither of those is an acceptable outcome. What a waste.”

What makes it worse is that well-meaning attempts to recycle the innards of these calendars by putting the plastic/foil mix into the household recycling bin means that entire lorry loads of “recycled” waste in the New Year will be rejected as contaminated loads.

“That time of year is always a nightmare for refuse collectors,” Hall explains, “Shiny Christmas wrapping paper is another reason to reject loads intended for recycling, and the added plastics just make it worse.”

TIP: Rip your old advent calendar apart. Recycle the card packaging, just bin the rest.

Surely there’s an alternative?

Of course there are alternatives to these mass produced disposable efforts.

“Just Google ‘refillable advent calendar’ and you come up with dozens of affordable examples,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall.

“You fill them up with your own treats – and get this – you don’t throw it in the bin when Christmas is over. Used again and again it becomes a family heirloom – all part of your own Christmas traditions.

And what makes these reusable calendars so unique is that you get so much more that a tiny lump of chocolate for breakfast.

“What you put in them is up to your own imagination. How about throwing in the odd lump of coal the night before as a warning when your little one is heading for Santa’s Naughty List?”

BusinessWaste.co.uk is at pains to say that we’re not out to suck all the joy out of Christmas. (And we get no joy from the thought of a coal-based breakfast tantrum)

In fact, the exact opposite is true – we want people to dump the damaging convenience items that surround the Festive Season, use a bit of imagination and make it a proper family occasion.

“And if we can do that while protecting the environment, we’re quite happy to take all the Scroogey-Grinchy criticism on the chin and make this world a better place,” says Hall.

“Humbug, anyone?”

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

Christmas Waste Hub

Why it’s high time we ditched cheapo Christmas crackers…and the shiny wrapping paper, and the plastic table cloth, and the Christmas napkins, and…

Families across Britain could give a huge present to the environment by dumping shop-bought Christmas crackers this year.

That’s the opinion of one of the country’s commercial waste collection experts, which says that the huge majority of treats from crackers are single use plastics, whose life is effectively over by the time everybody is sleeping off the Christmas pudding.

UK commercial waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk says that the Festive Season creates more plastic waste than any time of year, most of which goes to landfill or is burned – all a horrifying waste of money, resources and energy.

“Instead,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “families could choose a sustainable Christmas, just by using a bit of imagination and ditching the single-use plastics”.

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

The single-use Christmas

It’s estimated that over 40 million Christmas crackers end up in the bin on the 25th of December.

BusinessWaste.co.uk asked 1100 families about their Christmas habits when it comes to dealing with the day’s rubbish:

• A staggering 99% said they simply threw Christmas cracker gifts in the bin at the end of the day
• Some 81% said they used a plastic table cloth which is thrown away at the end of the Festive Season
• 78% said that their Christmas wrapping paper just goes straight into a big plastic bag and is jammed into the household waste bin
• Even Christmas table napkins aren’t immune – 45% said they threw out the unused ones in the New Year

“With tens of millions of us celebrating Christmas, the scale of unnecessary waste is appalling,” BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall says.

“When you think what goes into a Christmas cracker – the plastic toy, the snap, the shiny paper hat, the ribbons – it’s all wasted. And millions of these are pulled and immediately binned every Christmas Day.

“And that’s before you factor in the fact that millions upon millions of these things are shipped halfway across the world from China. It’s madness,” he says.
The crackers amount of waste goes far beyond crackers, Hall says.

For example: Most gift wrapping paper is not recyclable because it contains plastics to give it that lovely sheen people love to see under their trees.
“And there’s something about Christmas that makes people forget their good recycling habits,” he says, “Everything seems to get stuffed into the household general waste bin over Christmas. Drink? Gluttony? Laziness? Who knows why.”

The sustainable Christmas

So, what can families do to avoid needless waste this Festive Season?

It’s simple: Just use a little brainpower to cut out the single-use plastics.

• Ditch the shop-bought crackers and make your own. All it takes is the middle out of a loo roll, a bit of tissue paper, and a bit of imagination for a gift and a joke. Tip: Raid the Quality Street tub.
“Get the kids to make them the week before the big day,” says Hall, “It’ll add to the fun when granny gets a handful of Werther’s Originals and a joke about an elephant’s bottom”.
• Don’t use printed Christmas wrapping paper which can’t be recycled. Use plain brown paper instead, or a large roll of white drawing paper. Believe us, your tree will look like something out of a lifestyle magazine on Christmas morning.
As one family told us: “We use gift bags that get used again and again every Christmas and birthday. It’s our family in-joke and it saves us hours wrapping presents – and nothing gets thrown out!”
• Plastic table cloth? Are you mad? Get a real table cloth that you wash in the New Year and use again for Christmases yet to come. Make it a dark colour that doesn’t show the stains.

Business Waste’s Mark Hall: “As you can see, most of these ideas require very little change at all, and won’t make your Christmas any less enjoyable.
“In fact, you’ll be giving the world a Christmas present, knowing you’ll be joining many other families choosing to do exactly the same thing by slashing their Christmas waste and kicking the single-use plastic out of the Festive Season”.

And you never know, with everybody pulling in the same direction it might even prevent the inevitable Christmas arguments. But we can’t help you there.

Schools are missing out on valuable income which could be generated from waste cardboard and commercial waste collections– as well as teaching their pupils a valuable lesson about the importance of recycling.

The 24,000 or so primary and high schools in the UK go through plenty of cardboard throughout the year, often in the form of delivery packaging for supplies such as books, pens, textbooks and other classroom essentials. But recycling and waste management experts BusinessWaste.co.uk are keen to remind schools they could be missing a trick when it comes to recycling their waste.

The average and spends between £300 and £1000 on waste disposal per year; but instead of paying for the removal of their cardboard, schools could be earning valuable funds from it instead.

Buyers of waste cardboard pay upwards of £60 per tonne of cardboard, meaning that schools could quickly offset some of their commercial waste collection costs each year simply by storing and selling the recycling cardboard they already use instead of paying for the disposal and importantly boost this by setting up a cardboard drop of scheme for parents and for local businesses who can’t afford a cardboard bin. However, BusinessWaste.co.uk said, it is possible to use their cardboard recycling scheme as a crucial life lesson for students, too.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“Teaching young people about the importance of being environmentally friendly is absolutely key, and schools play an enormous role in helping them see the benefits of recycling their waste responsibly. If schools encouraged students and their parents to send in their own cardboard waste – freeing up valuable bin space at home – the community effort could generate more cash for crucial school supplies, teach children there’s a real, tangible benefit to recycling, and improve the local community’s attitude towards responsible waste disposal.”

The idea has many merits – the average primary school in the UK has 260 pupils, and the average secondary has 910 pupils. With funding for schools down 8% since 2009/10, inspiring young people to help contribute towards a shared recycling fund will help provide much-needed cash where schools are lacking and help support existing fundraising by the school.

Hall added: “Many parents are too busy – or too stretched financially – to contribute to yet another bake sale or raffle evening to help raise funds for their child’s school. But getting rid of your old Amazon boxes or the cardboard that came wrapped around your new sofa is not only free but a helping hand when council bin collections are less frequent than you’d like.”

With very little effort required by the school other than setting up a central collection point, these school recycling schemes could quickly generate a handy residual income source as pupils ‘donate’ scrap cardboard from Christmases, birthdays, and deliveries to be baled up and sold. BusinessWaste.co.uk suggests that schools could keep running totals of the weight of cardboard delivered to give pupils a visual connection to the benefits of recycling.

Hall concluded: “There are so many ways that schools can make this a fun, interactive way to get their pupils interested in recycling, as well as reducing costs or even making money for themselves! Challenges for pupils in different houses to see who can raise the biggest total of recycling would work well or keeping a fundraising chart on the school website showing exactly where the students’ cardboard contributions are going – for example, towards new sports equipment or computers.

“We’ve seen anecdotal evidence that schools who engage their pupils in a way that’s meaningful to their everyday lives improve those pupils’ attitudes towards the subject – and we think this is something which could really encourage recycling amongst young people. The fact that schools can make money from it makes it a win all-round!”

How the law of unintended consequences hits the plastic carrier bag tax

An unforeseen factor behind the supermarket plastic bag charge means that people are buying more single-use plastic bags.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you slap your forehead with frustration, one of the UK’s top waste and recycling companies says, and it’s all because of a thrifty habit we still haven’t shaken.

What everybody who supported the plastic bag charge levied on supermarket customers forgot is that millions of people use their supermarket carrier bags as bin bags, BusinessWaste.co.uk says.

“And as one study has found,” BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall says, “the cut in supermarket bags is now being offset by people buying more plastic rubbish sacks.”

Wait… that can’t be right, can it?

Here are the numbers:

According to a study published in a scientific journal earlier this year, the author concluded that in the US state of California, where single-use plastic supermarket bags are banned and shoppers have to pay ten cents for a paper sack:

• Some 20,000 tons of plastic supermarket bags were eliminated, but…
• This was offset by Californians buying an additional 6,000 tons of rubbish bags and refuse sacks

The logical conclusion from this is that nearly a third of people were using their shopping bags as bin bags, and they needed something else to hold their rubbish.
“This is the law of unintended consequences in action,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s Mark Hall, “and while there’s still a big decrease in the amount of plastic being used, it’s something nobody even thought would happen”.

That’s America. But what about the UK?

Mark Hall: “Of course, we had to find out if this is happening in the UK as well.”
And yes it is.

• BusinessWaste.co.uk carried out its own survey of 1500 households and found that:
• 470 households were buying extra rubbish bags instead of using supermarket plastic bags
• All put it down to the fact that supermarket carrier bags “cost money” and they don’t want to waste them by throwing them in the bin.

In fact, delving deeper showed that people tended to buy smaller rubbish bags, because – to quote one householder:

“Shop bags were just the right size for our bedroom and bathroom bins, and you just can’t get them for free anymore.”

So, as we’ve found out, the unintended consequence of the well-intentioned and enormously successful plastic bag charge in the United Kingdom is that it has undone a bit of household thriftiness for millions of people.

“And there’s no way that the charge is going to change because of that,” Hall says.

“Our top tip to people now belatedly in the market for refuse bags is to buy the ones with the highest rate of recycled materials, or bags that are biodegradable.
“And recycle more of your waste so you use fewer rubbish bags.”

OK, how about gaming the system? I can still get free bags?

And, as BusinessWaste.co.uk found out, there’s always people with a system to get out of paying 10p or more for a plastic bag.

It doesn’t always seem to work, though.

“We just use the free plastic bags that come with takeaway food,” one chap told us. “That does mean having take-out three or four times a week, and to be honest that’s not really worth it. Also, I’ve just gone up a jean size.”

While another householder with an eye for a deal said: “I bought a case of plastic bags from a wholesaler for pennies each.” Asked how many they have left as part of this extraordinary money-saving scheme: “Ten thousand.”

So, we know a gentleman in the English Home Counties – who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons – with up to ten thousand plastic bags in his garage. We hope the rats and mice don’t get to them first.

But our message is this: Re use, recycle more, waste less. That’s how you win at this game.

Drug users upset by plastic straw ban

“I might as well just give up, I’m losing a fortune”

The move away from plastic drinking straws to paper has sparked one of the most bizarre complaints registered with a company, quite possibly since the dawn of time.

Yorkshire–based commercial waste services company BusinessWaste.co.uk says that they’ve fielded a comment that claims the end of plastic straws is annoying COCAINE USERS because their paper replacements just aren’t up to the task. Whatever that task might be, we don’t know.

Says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall: “Some guy came up to one of our refuse operators and gave him the whole nine yards about how recycling and saving the oceans is messing up his drug habit, and he couldn’t believe his ears.”

But while this little slice of somebody’s misspent life may seem funny, the dash for paper straws does leave genuine concerns, especially for disabled people, he says.

Recreational drug user less than happy

BusinessWaste.co.uk’s Mark Hall says the bizarre confrontation happened one morning in London when one member of our team was confronted by a man in his twenties while going about his rounds.

Our operator was told that paper straws “are useless for cocaine” as – apparently – they collapse under the strain before the user satisfied.

“I might as well give up, I’m losing a fortune in white stuff,” we were told.

Our operator pointed the complainant to the local police station if he wished to take the matter further. “Unsurprisingly, we have heard nothing since”, says Hall, “but we’ve got nothing but praise for our employee’s calm, patience, and exemplary customer support”.

However, Hall says, our drug-addled friend has a point to make about paper straws – they’re not the solution for the current problem, and millions are not yet recyclable.

From milkshakes to landfill

There’s been a lot of press about the poor performance of paper straws, and some of it is entirely justified says BusinessWaste.co.uk

For example, the coating that’s on millions and millions of them are unsuitable for recycling, and the best method of disposing of them is either through incineration for landfill.

“And the last thing we want is even more rubbish buried in holes in the ground,” says Hall.

The complaints that they’re of no use to the millions of people who like a fast-food restaurant milkshake are also borne out by personal experience.

“The straws give up halfway down the cup,” says Hall. “You’re better off with a spoon.

“Seriously,” he says, “I hope that a true recyclable straw of sufficient structural integrity is on the way soon. It will be a genuine step forward in removing tons of waste from the system.”

Why disabled people still need plastic straws

While most of us are complaining about how poor-performing paper straws are bringing about the downfall of our civilisation, there’s one voice that’s being drowned out by this First World Problem.

There are significant numbers of disabled people who find paper straws difficult to use, and only a more rigid plastic straw will suffice in a drink.

With plastic straws being harder to find in pubs, bars and restaurants, it’s making life difficult for people who find it difficult to drink without one.

Paralympic gold medallist and disabled rights advocate Tanni Grey-Thompson feels strongly about this and tweeted: “What upsets me is the number of people who demand the ban on straws but no understanding of why they’re needed.  And the assumption we hate the environment.  It’s not all disabled people’s fault.

“This is not life or death, but if plastic straws are not available it could cause lots of medical issues.”

While metal straws aren’t great for hot drinks, and paper straws collapse too easily, not enough is being done to ensure that people who still need plastic straws can find them.

The alternative, Baroness Grey-Thomspon said in a television appearance last year, is that disabled people just won’t socialise or leave the house, and that’s even more expensive in human terms.

“Let’s use some common sense here,” says Business Waste’s Mark Hall. “The issue for some folk is far more important than people think.”

Learn about plastic recycling.

Open fridges – seen in supermarkets up and down the country – should be banned due to their environmental impact.

Thousands of these open fridges are in supermarkets in the UK and millions worldwide. Now environmental experts BusinessWaste.co.uk has urged for them to be banned.

A common sight for shoppers, these fridges are used to display cold products such as meat, dairy, ready meals and other staples, and can line dozens of aisles in bigger supermarkets. They became popular with retailers as their open fronts allowed shoppers to see what was on offer more easily – leading to more impulse purchases and bigger profits for the businesses.

However, this open-fronted design is precisely what makes them so damaging for the environment. The refrigerant used in many of the leading retailers’ stores consists of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – a group of so-called ‘super greenhouse gases’ which are much more harmful even than carbon dioxide, which means that the over 7,000 supermarket locations in the UK are collectively making a hefty contribution to harmful emission levels.

Supermarket fridge facts:

– 1.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy are used by supermarkets each year, with 60-70% used by fridges – that’s the energy equivalent of boiling the kettle 15 million times. That’s a lot of cups of tea!
– Sainsbury’s alone uses 1% of the UK’s energy demand
– Supermarkets’ HFC gas emissions are equivalent to producing 5.6 billion plastic bags
– New ‘aerofoil’ technology in supermarket fridges could mean energy savings of up to 25% if adopted by retailers

While some retailers have made moves to improve the environmental impact of their refrigeration systems – with some of the household names, such as Aldi and Tesco, committing to reducing their HFC use – this fails to address the energy wastage which is a factor of all open fridge designs, regardless of the coolant used.

Mark Hall, spokesperson for BusinessWaste.co.uk, urged retailers to reconsider:

“Committing to reducing harmful emissions is all well and good, but retailers have been slow to do so in practice – and by continuing to use open fridges, they are simply paying lip service to improving their environmental credentials. Shoppers adapt quickly to new initiatives; the 5p plastic carrier bag levy is an excellent example of the general public quickly adopting new ways of shopping. And, with environmental concerns higher than ever on the public consciousness, we are finding that consumers are increasingly willing to accept that changes must be made to prevent further damage to our planet.”
If all UK supermarkets put doors on their open fridges, the electricity saved would be approximately double of that generated by Yorkshire’s coal-fired Drax powerstation – Europe’s second largest. It seems obvious, then, that closed fridges could result in cost savings for supermarkets, as well as improving their emissions.
Hall added, however:

“Supermarkets are ultimately concerned about the bottom line, and whether or not their sales would be affected without the pull of products catching shoppers’ eyes. They rely heavily on impulse purchasing – hence more expensive products being stocked at eye level and those tempting treats placed by the tills. But, as with many issues which are huge contributors to environmental damage, it’s now the responsibility of industries to innovate and find new ways to operate in this new, concerning landscape we find ourselves in.

“We urge all retailers to look more closely at how they store and market their cold products, and help dramatically reduce the use of open fridges in the UK. We have the opportunity to make the UK a leader in this space, and while some work has already been done, we have a long way to go.”

Roberta Lindley from Health and Safety software company Protecting.co.uk added “ Its worth noting that there could be certain dangers arising in older fridge with the leaking of toxic Freon gas, which is extremely harmful to the environment. A tell tale sign could be spots on oil dripping onto the floor. If you see that, get out of the shop”

Learn about fridge disposal

If 2018 was the year of the reusable coffee cup (but sadley not the end of single use coffee pods)and paper straws, where next for the ethical high street consumer? BusinessWaste.co.uk research takes a closer look at the areas to watch in 2019 as well as a look back at the progress so far.

Packaging-free stores

Selling produce without excessive packaging is less a new idea and more a return to traditional methods, but packaging-free shops have seen a huge increase in popularity in the first half of 2019.

Plastic-free stores have opened in Edinburgh and London this year, with smaller versions – selling dried goods and refills of cleaning products, amongst other items – popping up in markets in Manchester and Leeds. Beauty retailers Lush have followed suit, opening a packaging free location where devoted followers of the cult brand can buy solid shower gels, soaps, and perfumes – all without packaging.

Increased demand is leading to much more choice for consumers who’d like to skip on wasteful packaging, making this an area to watch in 2019.

Renewable energy sources

This year has seen the first coal-free week in UK energy supply – and a huge rise in the number of consumers switching energy suppliers towards sustainable providers.

Firms such as Bulb and Ecotricity have been picking up thousands of new customers for their eco-friendly claims over 2018 and the start of 2019 – with plans which promise renewable and carbon-neutral energy sources.

In response, the Big Six energy providers have been forced to introduce new plans to accommodate increasingly eco-minded customers – although they often stop short of the more green companies’ claims, such as Npower’s Go Green plan which promises to match 100% of a user’s electricity usage (or 15% of their gas usage) by purchasing the equivalent in renewable energy certificates.

A greater move to renewable energy could not only encourage bigger providers to offer better propositions, but could also prompt bigger conversations at government level about investment in renewable energy sources – watch this space!

Slow fashion

Slow fashion has seen – well, a slow burn. Created as an antidote to the fast fashion of high street chains, whose cheap, often unethically sourced, garments are designed to be replaced in a matter of months, slow fashion focuses on ethical sourcing, high quality, and classic pieces which will stand the test of time. The industry has seen slow uptake due to the higher pricing associated with slow fashion and a lack of choice for consumers, but that could be about to change.

While even high-end brands like Versace are now keen to flex their sustainable muscle, at the more affordable end of the market there has been a boom in new brands – and existing companies upping their game. Retail giant H&M launched a new line of recycled-fabric garments; hundreds of companies signed a charter to reduce plastic waste; even High Street staple M&S has proudly announced all of its cotton now comes from sustainable sources and a clothes recycling scheme in partnership with Oxfam.

Mark Hall, spokesperson for BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“Consumers with environmental concerns will find themselves increasingly well catered to as the High Street catches up with demand – and we hope that the trends seen in the first half of 2019 continue throughout the rest of the year.

“Businesses can no longer ignore that people are more concerned than ever about the effects of consumerism on the environment, and they are taking notice slowly but surely. Consumers can have the biggest influence on this change by choosing to shop from retailers who take the environment seriously – and hit those who don’t in the profits and losses. “

Certain items should be banned immediately to prevent further damage the environment, business waste and recycling experts BusinessWaste.co.uk have said.

While the impact of single-use plastics is being discussed more visibly, actual change has been slow. The introduction of a 5p charge for plastic bags saw a dramatic reduction in the number of new bags issued by retailers, but still saw 500 million bags issued in six months after the scheme was rolled out – still equivalent to 4,000 tonnes of new plastic.

Similarly, many chain restaurants have announced their intention to introduce paper, rather than plastic, straws, following the Government’s announcement that they would soon ban the sale of plastic straws – but many outlets are still using plastic, 6 months away from the proposed implementation of the ban.

There are, research by BusinessWaster.co.uk and studies have shown, a number of items whose use – and subsequent disposal – create an unjustifiable amount of plastic waste. Here, we look at the worst offenders (and some alternatives):

Plastic bags
Plastic bags take 10-20 years to break down in the environment – unlike a water-soluble alternative developed in Chile, which (despite looking identical to a traditional carrier bag) dissolves once stirred into water, removing the need for landfill-clogging plastics.

Disposable nappies
Taking a horrifying 450 years to break down, disposable nappies are one of the worst offenders for single-use plastic – and, as many contain moisture-locking gels, can have other unintended ill-effects once dumped in landfill. However, reusable cloth nappies are now widely available, and have been found to be better for babies’ skin – making for happier babies and more eco-friendly parents.

Fishing line
An unusual entry, but with 1.2 million fishing licences issued for 2015-16 (the most recent year for which data is available), there are millions of miles of plastic fishing line (which takes 600 years to break down) bought and discarded each year. Banning this would not stop angling enthusiasts, however – dissolvable fishing line has been developed which eventually breaks down in water, meaning fishing fans can still hook their catch of the day without adding to landfill!

Cigarette butts
By now, everyone is aware that smoking itself is dangerous – and banning it outright would contribute dramatically to an improvement in public health. But plastic cigarette filters, which are discarded once a smoker finishes their crafty smoking break, take between 1 and 5 years to break down in landfill. However, with improved support for smoking cessation and reusable vaping technology available, there are alternatives for those who are addicted and struggling to quit.

Plastic bottles
Taking up to 450 years to break down, plastic bottles are a prime offender – and banning them could see the continued increase of reusable water containers, which have seen a dramatic increase in sales in recent years. Many of these are more durable plastics, or aluminium, and therefore can be used for many years before needing recycling.

Styrofoam
Horrifyingly, there are no indications for how long this widely-used packaging material takes to break down after it has been discarded – causing a potentially massive headache for the environment, as online shopping (and therefore carefully-packed parcels) reaches new heights each year. However, there are eco-friendly alternatives to styrofoam. From bamboo fibre packaging to cardboard ‘packing peanuts’, there are a wealth of cushioning options for your brand new TV to be delivered safely.

Aluminium cans
While aluminium cans are recyclable, many local authorities lack the capacity to actually do so – and many millions of drinks cans are sent to landfill each year. However, as they can take up 200 years to break down, drinks retailers could consider more eco-friendly options if they were banned – such as reusable glass containers or even recyclable cardboard cartons.

BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall said:
“We truly believe that there cannot be significant change to the amount of single-use plastic – and other materials – going to landfill without equally significant action. Banning these products might seem like a big step, but as we’ve shown, there are plenty of eco-friendly alternatives.

“The best way to encourage businesses to innovate and find better ways of manufacturing is to create demand for it, and that’s what we believe a ban on these items would do. The general public are now more aware of green issues than ever and we feel that there would be widespread support for a bold move towards improving our environmental credentials.”

As wildfire races through even more acres of British countryside this week, devastating the beautiful Ilkley Moor, calls are being made to ban disposable barbecues to prevent further damage.

The ancient moorland, in West Yorkshire, saw two fires over the Bank Holiday weekend – despite laws having been in place since 1900 prohibiting citizens from having fires on the moor. Firefighters tackled the blazes for several days to control the damage, but a number of eyewitnesses were appalled to report that there were still thrill-seekers holding barbecues in the area.

Local business and recycling & waste disposal experts, BusinessWaste.co.uk, have called for the disposable barbecues – often costing as little as two or three pounds – to be banned.

There are a number of downsides to using the cheap grills – not least of which is their throwaway nature, which (combined with their cheap price) means they perpetuate the harmful ‘single-use’ culture which threatens the environment. They also contain charcoal, which is normally unsustainably sourced, contributing to the ‘desertification’ of forest, and cannot be recycled or composted, meaning that for each one sold in the UK each year – estimated at over a million – there is new waste committed to landfill.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of waste collection compnay BusinessWaste.co.uk, said

“One supermarket chain alone sold 300,000 disposable barbecues last year – that means there are likely over a million of them sold each year, each one contributing to ruining forests for charcoal and adding to piles of waste in landfill. While most people will dispose of them safely, even a small percentage failing to do so could have drastic consequences for the local flora and fauna. Banning them wouldn’t mean the end of the great British barbecue – but it would mean the end of a throwaway attitude to something which can do real harm.”

The business has called for ‘swift and decisive’ action to be taken by some of the biggest retailers in the Ilkley area and across the UK, including Tesco, Booths and Co-op. BusinessWaste.co.uk say that a move to immediately ban the sale of these items will reduce anti-social behaviour, cut down on littering, and show a real commitment to improving both their local and national green credentials.

To date, no response has been provided.

Other areas have taken similar steps, with Moors Valley in Dorset banning disposable barbecues in 2018 following two enormous moors fires in Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Mark Hall concluded:

“It’s truly heartbreaking to see huge areas of iconic British countryside damaged due to the thoughtless and selfish actions of a few – and we would strongly urge retailers to reconsider selling disposable BBQs, which are very often the source of wildfires.

“Being based a stone’s throw from this week’s fire on Ilkey Moor, we’ve seen first hand the devastation that can be done, and we are indebted to the incredible, tireless fire service who have been ensuring nobody was hurt.”

 “As amazing as the emergency services have been, we shouldn’t have to rely on already-stretched public services to tackle completely preventable damage. Items which are not only environmentally unfriendly due to their packaging and disposal, but also repeatedly cause enormous, irreparable damage to our countryside should be banned without question, and it is our duty to champion that cause.”

Everyday life can be hectic and small details often get missed – but a staggering 95% of households have ‘no idea’ which of their rubbish bins are due to be collected each week, waste disposal experts BusinessWaste.co.uk have found.

The survey conducted by BusinessWaste.co.uk, which polled 1,400 households, showed that the vast majority of households could not remember which of their bins was due to be collected that week – and an entertaining number of respondents admitted to resorting to ‘Bin Chess’ to find out.

Kelly, 38, from Bristol, laughed: “It starts on a Sunday evening – you can see people popping their heads round their curtains seeing if anybody’s made the first move yet so that everyone else can follow suit.”

While it might sound like something from a spy film, this is much less glamorous than James Bond – instead, hapless residents are lying in wait for their (hopefully more knowledgeable) neighbours to indicate which bin needs placing by the kerb for collection.

Macclesfield resident Stuart, 46, said it occasionally resulted in a stand-off, adding: “Sometimes you know it’s going to be a long night when nobody’s made a move by 9pm!”

The BusinessWaste.co.uk study showed that, despite their frequency, bin collections continued to be a source of trouble for households, indicating that:

• 95% had ‘no great certaintly’ which bins were collected each week;
• 10% have had to chase the bin truck last-minute;
• and 45% have forgotten to take the bin out altogether in the last 6 months.

Despite the comical image of a half-asleep neighbor chasing after the bin lorry dragging their recycling bin, failure to prepare for collection can cause a number of issues for residents.

Mark Hall, spokesperson from BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“In many places, each type of bin is only collected once a month – so while it might be easy to forget in our busy day-to-day lives, we could find ourselves with much bigger problems down the line. Piling black bags next to our jam-packed bins is a magnet for local cats, foxes, and rats, not to mention unsightly, and many local authorities will refuse to collect extra bags of rubbish from the kerbside.”

When asked what they do with excess waste due to forgetting the bin collection date, survey respondents had mixed responses. Some, like Anna from Chiswick, said they waited until they could get to a local tip. She added: “It’s a massive pain, and you end up carting smelly leaky bags in your car – I hate it but I can still never seem to remember to take the bins out right for more than a few months at a time”.

Others resorted to more underhand tactics. Ollie, 19, a student in Birmingham, admitted: “We just shove our binbags in next door’s bins when we’ve forgotten to put ours out. After one party we ended up putting about 20 cans in their recycling bin and they still don’t know it was us – well, we hope!”

Mark Hall concluded:

“Most people will forget to put their bins out and now and then – but instead of conducting covert missions to a neighbour’s garden or driving to the tip, households could find easier ways to remind themselves. Most councils have printable calendars on their website with the dates of upcoming collections, and many even now have an app which will send you notifications – saving you a rubbish-based nightmare in future!”

Consumers are increasingly turning towards second-hand clothing, studies are revealing – with conscientious buyers set to make pre-loved items a bigger market than so-called ‘fast fashion’ by 2029.

In a poll conducted by waste management collection company, BusinessWaste.co.uk, almost half of the 1500 respondents (45%) said they would buy clothes that had been pre-owned. This mirrors other studies that show that the second-hand clothing market was set to double in the next five years – and overtake the fast fashion movement in the next decade.

Fast fashion, commonly seen on the High Street, focuses on regular changes to clothing ranges, cheaply made garments, and low prices – meaning it has seen a boom in recent decades, as fashion conscious shoppers became accustomed to having the latest look. But it also results in many tonnes of clothing – much of which is made from non-recyclable fabrics – being sent to landfill.

However, it seems that consumers are beginning to shake off their prejudices about wearing second hand clothing. While just 20% said they currently regularly buy second-hand clothes, a huge amount said they could be influenced to start doing so 

What would encourage you to buy more second-hand clothing?
Friends or family doing so first        90%
Celebrities doing so            94%
Nothing would                   6%

Interestingly, while both younger and older fashionistas were seemingly happy to shop second-hand – 80% of 16 – 21 year olds and 91% of over sixties, respectively – the overall percentage averaged at 45%, suggesting that there are cultural elements at play.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“Older people are used to buying clothes that were made to last and passing hand-me-downs through families, which explains this age group’s willingness to buy second-hand. And, on the other end of the scale, young people are increasingly environmentally conscious, which could certainly influence their shopping decisions and cause them to turn away from fast fashion. However, those in their thirties and forties are perhaps of a generation more used to consumerism, having grown up in the excessive 1980s – it’s certainly an interesting generational divide.”

Of those who said they would be happy to buy second-hand garments, there was a clear consensus that image played a part – with charity shops still carrying a slight stigma. 62% (2) said they would be happy to purchase from charity shops – much lower than the figure who would buy elsewhere.

Would you buy second-hand clothes from:
A charity shop?            62%
A High Street retailer?        80%

Interestingly, 92% said they’d buy second-hand clothing from a High Street retailer if celebrities or friends did first, suggesting that there remain some hang-ups about being part of the ‘in crowd’ when it comes to fashion.

Hall added:

“People are turning to second-hand clothing – not just out of financial necessity, but out of choice. There’s a huge opportunity here for retailers to improve their green credentials and tap into a growing number of consumers who would like to buy stylish clothing, but without the ethical concerns. Some well-known retailers already feature vintage or pre-loved selections in store and there’s clearly room for these to be more widely available – consumers still have the benefit of shopping curated lines of (second-hand) pieces in line with their preferred style, but without the environmental impact.”

Waste transfer note template

Meet your duty of care with the below waste transfer note example. Use this waste transfer note template for an example of what needs including to ensure your rubbish is removed safely and legally.

Learn more about waste transfer notes

That wonderful time of the year has come and gone – but those thoughtful gifts will soon turn into an environmental headache as millions of candles head to landfill in January.

A report by business waste management service BusinessWaste.co.uk has shown that, far from being a light-hearted stocking stuffer, candles are one of the worst offenders for Christmas-related waste.

The candle market in the UK is now worth an eye-watering £90 million, with over a quarter of households now buying them regularly – and with this huge increase in popularity has come an increase in candles, particularly by luxury brands, making a widely-purchased gift during the festive season. Even lower-end retailers such as Aldi jumped on the home fragrance bandwagon, releasing hugely sought-after copies of more expensive scents – even causing scuffles to break out in stores where stock was lower.

So where does this increase in our obsession with lighting candles come from? It seems the Scandinavian trend of ‘hygge’ might have a lot to answer for. The term, which has become synonymous with cosiness, is Danish and represents “creating a warm atmosphere”.  This cosy ideal has been widely adopted as a ‘lifestyle goal’, particularly by the Instagram generation, and it is often depicted by luxurious blankets, fairy lights and – of course – twinkling candles.

It’s no wonder, then, that their popularity is soaring – particularly as on-trend gift last Christmas. However, the environmental impact of this huge uptick in candle sales cannot be underestimated. Candles are often packaged in plastic wrap and even plastic holders – particularly popular tea-light style candles – and recipients are failing in their droves to recycle the remains of their cosy evenings in.

The average candle in retail outlets in the UK burns for six hours – meaning that for just six hours of household decor, the plastic casings of candles could remain in landfill for up to 1,000 years. And plastic isn’t the only culprit – many manufacturers also use glass and metal casings. While the general public has begun to increase its household recycling for the most part, reports suggest that efforts are mostly focused on food packaging, meaning that hundreds of thousands of other household waste items – such as candles – are still heading straight for landfill.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, cautioned:

“As relaxing as a candle-lit room in the depths of winter can seem, households need to be aware that their choices as consumers have a direct impact on the environment. We see novelty candles flood the shelves throughout the run-up to Christmas and while they make a nice, cheap gift, their long term impact is just not worth the brief enjoyment they bring.”

Adding to the poor recycling rates for candle packaging is the fact that paraffin, a key component in most candles available on the High Street, is a by-product of petroleum, which means the increase demand for candles is adding to the already considerable pressure on non-renewable energy sources – and burning them also releases the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Luckily for ethically-minded consumers, beeswax and soy alternatives are available and lessen the impact on the environment.

Hall added:

“Of course, many of us like to add a few luxuries to their homes – and there are certainly ways to reduce the impact you have on the environment. If you’re buying candles as gifts, aim to purchase those made from more eco-friendly waxes such as soy or beeswax with longer burn times, to maximise useage before recycling.

“For those of you who received a few scented candles in their stockings this year, please do ensure you’re recycling the remaining plastic, glass or metal afterwards wherever possible – it might be nice to have a festive glow in your living room, but the planet pays the price for it!”

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

SIt’s something most of us won’t give a second thought while wrapping our presents during the festive period – but is there a more sinister consequence to using Sellotape, and should it be banned for the good of the environment?

The UK’s waste management service, BusinessWaste.co.uk, has delved into this sticky subject as Christmas – and with it, the enormous increase in purchases of sticky tape – approaches. It found that, alongside wrapping paper and plastic bows, sellotape was one of the most-purchased items during December, with 6 million rolls sold in the UK in the run-up to Christmas.

Of course, by the time the Queen’s Speech begins on Christmas day, eager families will have long since opened their presents, and it is the aftermath of this wrapping bonanza which BusinessWaste.co.uk is concerned with.

Sellotape, or sticky tape, is non-recyclable – generally made of a type of plastic called polypropylene, and one which many people may mistakenly believe can go in their recycling bin. Incidentally, many types of wrapping paper are also non-recyclable – meaning that Christmas day can create an enormous amount of waste headed directly for landfill.

Even the more eco-conscious amongst us who seek our recyclable paper may see their efforts thwarted, as paper with sticky tape on it causes problems further down the line at recycling centres – meaning that, with an average of 1.1 billion presents bought each Christmas, the implications for landfill sites are enormous.

Mark Hall, Communications Director at BusinessWaste.co.uk, commented:

“While it’s easy to get lost in the twinkling lights and excitement of Christmas, we have a very real responsibility to consider the impact millions of rolls of non-recyclable plastic have on the environment every year. With over a billion presents being given each year, consumers must act to reduce the unnecessary landfill totals each December.” We will use some 6+ million rolls of sellotape, more than enough to go to the moon and back.

It’s not all doom and gloom for December’s environmental impact, however. There are plenty of alternatives to this sticky problem – with the rise in eco-friendly entrepreneurs meaning there are now a number of biodegradable tapes on the market. Of course, you could also go back to the more traditional string or ribbon methods – string, particularly, has had a renaissance in recent years for its rustic look, and it’s cheaper than plastic tape.

Shoppers who are the ultimate in thrifty – and environmentally conscious – gifting, could consider giving gifts which don’t require any wrapping at all, such as concert tickets, charity donations or experience days.

Hall concluded:

“When it comes to this time of year, people are often caught up in the consumerism and the desire to buy (and wrap) huge numbers of gifts for their families – but we should remember that gifts that contribute to damaging the environment are hardly in the Christmas spirit! Turning to recyclable or biodegradable wrapping methods will leave you with the warm glow of knowing you’ve done something good for the environment, as well as from your favourite Christmas tipple.”

READ – ALL THE CHRISTMAS WASTE FACTS

A surprising majority of shoppers have confessed to stealing plastic carrier bags during their weekly shop, it has been revealed.

Despite the 5p plastic bag levy introduced by the Government in 2015, a survey collated by waste management agency, BusinessWaste.co.uk, shows that light-fingered shoppers are still sneaking bags past the scanners in a bid to avoid paying.

The survey, which covered 1,000 shoppers from across the UK, showed that 41% admitted to the theft of plastic bags at least once in the past 12 months, blaming shops who charge more than the minimum 5p amount set by the legislation.

One unabashed shopper added: “Most places charge 10p now – that’s just too much, especially when I’ve got a grand’s worth of them under the sink already!”

This appears to be a common attitude, with social media awash with jokes about plastic bag stashes being worth a small fortune after the charge came into effect – suggesting that households are well aware that bags should, and can, be reused.

However, those who avoid paying the levy despite hoarding plenty of bags at home highlight a misunderstanding of the purpose of the charge – in that it was introduced by the Government to encourage reuse of existing carrier bags, or a switch to a reusable product such as cotton shopping bags.

The move saw a dramatic reduction on the number of carrier bags issued in the year after the charge was introduced – down to 19 per person from 140, suggesting that Brits have responded to the financial disincentive and are adopting more eco-friendly shopping habits. However, 1.04 billion plastic bags were still sold by the seven major supermarkets in 2017-18 – and single use plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down, meaning there’s still an enormous risk to the environment if shoppers don’t change their ways.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, warned:

“Shoppers may resent paying for plastic bags – but the solution is certainly not to steal them! A cotton or jute tote bag is easy to keep in the car, your handbag, or by the front door and can be used hundreds of times. Of course, it means remembering to take it with you, but with a bit of preparation you never need to buy a plastic bag again – which is great, not only for the environment, but also for your wallet.”

Shoppers may soon find themselves more inclined to switch to reusable bags, as the Government has announced a consultation on the plastic bag levy, to take place at the end of this year. The consultation could see the charge rolled out to all retailers, not just supermarkets – and crucially, could see the minimum levy double to 10p per bag.

Hall added:

“With Government plans to further increase scope and cost of the plastic bag levy following the success of the initial 5p charge, it’s the perfect time for shoppers to make the switch over to reusable bags.
“Many people will have suitable bags lying around already, but they’re readily and cheaply available and, as with many lifestyle changes, once you’re used to taking a cloth bag with you, it’ll become second nature. A tiny amount of forethought could have an enormously positive environmental impact, and that is something we should all endeavour to spend an extra second or two on before we head to the shops and think about plastic recycling.”

Despite the rise of recycling and recent high-profile debates in Government and the media about plastic use, 90% of businesses still do not have a green policy, it has been revealed.

UK waste management agency BusinessWaste.co.uk, says that the overwhelming majority of businesses are still behind the times when it comes to reducing their environmental impact.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, explained:

“Households are expected to recycle their waste as a matter of due course now, and we are seeing much more media coverage of environmentally unfriendly items such as plastic water bottles or straws – but many businesses have been slow to implement changes into their day-to-day operations”

BusinessWaste.co.uk conducted a survey with 700 companies and found;

80% Had no separate recycling bins (internally or external)

96% Did not use recycled paper

59% Used plastic cups at the water fountain

20% Had an written green policy

6% Used green cleaning products

36% Used an fridge not AA+ rated

Johnny who works in marketing said “Mel in accounts is always asking for a paper recycling bin, I don’t know why we don’t have one to be honest”

Hall from BusinessWaste.co.uk added

“It isn’t just about recycling their waste – although this is, of course, very important – there are small changes which can be made each day which add up. Paper cups instead of plastic at the water cooler and encouraging employees to turn off lights in unused meeting rooms are two seemingly small ways to improve a business’s green credentials – and each of these actions has real benefits.”

However, failing to address environmental impact – or even consider a green policy – isn’t just bad for a firm’s impact on the environment. A study reported in the Guardian in 2015 showed that young people were increasingly more likely to consider a company’s ethical standing when applying for a jobs – including its approach to sustainability, which suggests that businesses may be damaging their own desirability as employers, too.

Environmental experts recommend including both employees as well as management in the creation of new green policies in the workplace. Not only does engaging with employees create a sense of ownership over the workplace and its collective environmental impact, it can also help generate broader discussions about policies which are most relevant to their daily routines. For example, teams working in paper-heavy departments may be more likely to suggest moving to paperless systems, while employees who frequently travel to meetings might be more inclined to suggest conference calling as an alternative to cut the firm’s carbon footprint.

Creating an environmental policy is an opportunity for businesses to review whether its operations are environmentally responsible. It can also help lower cost through reduced consumption and waste, providing a real incentive for firms to look at all aspects of their day-to-day running, including their suppliers, energy use, and use of consumables.

Hall added:

“Some businesses, especially smaller companies, may feel daunted by the idea of creating a green policy – but it doesn’t have to be War and Peace. Simply looking at your current use of energy and consumable items and setting some goals for reducing waste (alongside small, easily-implemented actions such as buying recycling bins for break areas) go a long way.

“Not only does this have a measurable effect on both your environmental impact and your overheads, it can also be a positive reflection on your business for clients, suppliers, and potential employees. Considering how urgent and crucial the issue of environmental damage, particularly waste going to landfill, has become, businesses cannot afford to ignore it any longer – and the good news is that companies can begin make a huge difference with just some small changes.”

This week, environmental protesters have hit the headlines for posting their empty crisp packets back to the UK’s largest crisp makers, Walkers – but ready salted snacks aren’t the only offenders.

Thousands of empty packets have been posted to the food giant’s freepost address in a protest designed to highlight the fact that, despite a continued trend towards more environmentally friendly packaging, crisp packets are still not recyclable.

Although the protests have drawn attention, leading business waste management service, BusinessWaste.co.uk, says that protesters haven’t gone far enough.

Mark Hall, Communications Director of BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

“Enormous companies, including Walkers, respond to financial pressure – while posting crisp packets back to them is a good way to draw media attention for the greater good, ultimately it doesn’t hurt their bottom line, and won’t effect change.”

With over 4 billion packets of crisps produced by the company each year – 11 million per day – its environmental impact is considerable.

In April this year, a young boy discovered a 30 year old crisp packet washed up on a Cornwall beach whilst litter picking[1], highlighting the concerning fact that plastics, such as those used in food packaging, do not biodegrade and remain in the ecosystem for decades. This, plus the disappointing response from Walkers, who pledged only to have replaced their plastic bags with eco-friendly options by 2025, has led consumers to take a stand against the environmentally unfriendly packaging.

Hall added:

“Consumers could really push this issue by making the returns more difficult for Walkers to deal with – for example, by filling the packets with heavier items, just like consumers did to the freepost credit card applications a few years ago. This will be more costly for them to process and, in turn, cause them to address the reason for the protest – which is that, in 2018, it is deeply concerning that a large business continues to use non-recyclable packaging.”

“While this is clearly a pressing issue, other manufacturers are guilty of similar lack of care. Disposable nappies, the household staple for many families with young children, create millions of tonnes of waste per year, with 8 million thrown away per day in the United Kingdom. Not only are they widely used, meaning that billions of individual nappies enter the waste disposal system each year, they also contain non-recyclable plastics which can take hundreds of years to decompose.[2]”
Hall from BusinessWaste.co.uk noted:
“If consumers want to lobby companies who produce widely-use products with damaging environmental footprints, then perhaps they should also be sending nappies back to their manufacturers.
“For hundreds of years before plastic disposable nappies were invented, babies – and the environment – coped perfectly well without them; but their introduction sees millions of tonnes heading to landfill every year, despite there being less harmful and much cheaper options out there.
“Unfortunately, big businesses do not care about finding an ethical solution while consumers are happily using their products. While we know that the convenience of disposables is irreplaceable for many families, perhaps a glut of used nappies sent to the manufacturer – like these crisp packets – might force businesses to take notice of how consumers feel about unethical and environmentally damaging products.”
“We would suggest the answer isn’t posting back used items, it’s not buying those items to begin with”

Bin shaming, for making a mess of recycling? Households could soon be charged a return fee

Households who fail to recycle properly could soon be hit with a bin shame fee by their local council in a bid to reduce landfill waste.

The plans, reported by BusinessWaste.co.uk, would see local authorities charge individuals whose households incorrectly put recyclables into general waste bins, causing a bigger strain on landfill sites.

Despite huge increases in the rate of recycling nationwide, there remain tonnes of paper, plastic and other recyclable goods which needlessly go into landfill each year. Councils are under pressure to keep the rate of recycling high – including introducing penalties for households who fail to properly separate their waste.

The scheme, which has been described as a way to ‘shock repeat offenders’, aims to remove the burden placed on landfill sites, which saw 44.7 million tonnes of waste[1] – of an overall 203 million tonnes of waste handled – in 2016. Councils across the UK budgeted a staggering £6.3 billion for waste management in 2017-18[2], and many authorities are looking both to reduce the burden of landfill fees as well as meeting strict recycling targets.

While households may worry fear that the proposals will mean complicated or time-consuming additions to their waste disposal routines, it won’t add any extra difficulties into the recycling process. Rather, it will follow the existing recycling guidelines, with penalties only incurred by those who fail to place recyclable materials in their usual designated bins.

BusinessWaste.co.uk say that the charges will only form part of the new measures. The incorrectly-sorted items will be returned to the household to be correctly recycled – with the fee covering the shipping and handling costs for sending the waste to its original source. It is hoped that the move will force households to think more closely about the environmental costs of waste management by imposing a financial cost on those who contribute unnecessarily to the problem.

Mark Hall, spokesperson at BusinessWaste.co.uk, commented:

“It may seem like an excessive move, but with recycling bins provided to all households, there’s no excuse not to take a few seconds to seperate your waste. Hopefully this will also prompt consumers into making more conscious decisions when they shop – for example, choosing items which can be recycled – and thus further reduce their environmental impact!”

“Of course, we don’t necessarily agree with levying charges on homeowners as a punitive measure. We’d like to see councils and local government take an educational approach to ensure that the general public are well-informed of the benefits of recycling, which is a more positive way to help form life-long habits. However, this is certainly one way to turbo-charge recycling growth, especially for councils with historically low recycling rates.”

There is plenty of information online and elsewhere that espouses the benefits of recycling. It saves on energy, it encourages us to reuse things, it cuts down on waste sent to landfills… and on it goes.

But what about disadvantages? It would be foolish to assume there are none, but this is not an area many people think about. We thought we’d cover some of the disadvantages to even up the balance.

It takes time

Separating recyclables from non-recyclables takes time. It’s also easy to throw something away you think isn’t recyclable when it is, and vice versa. The more you know about recycling in this way, the easier it gets, but it is a point worth noting.

It takes up more room

If we threw away everything, as we used to in years gone by, we’d only ever need one bin. Nowadays, most people have at least three bins to sort their waste into, sometimes more. Glass, plastic, paper, regular rubbish… all these things must be cleaned, sorted, and put into the correct receptacle.

It costs more to start with

To recycle plastic, the right processes must be in place to make it happen. That means investing in vehicles to collect and transport the waste. It also means making sure the right machinery is provided to make it possible to recycle the waste. However, once these are in place, the long-term cost would be very different.

Recycled products are not always safe or of good quality

This varies enormously from one product to the next. However, it is worth noting some recycled products are of a poorer quality than ones that are made from new. The original products must be cleaned, melted, pulped, or otherwise dealt with to make it possible to recycle them. That isn’t always a good thing.

Putting best practices in place

While there are many benefits to recycling as much as we can, it makes sense that we would need to adopt best practices from start to finish to create the ideal scenario. Everyone wants to do their bit for the environment, so it is vital that we find the best ways to recycle products without causing further harm to the world around us. Learning more about the products we use, how we use them, and how we dispose of what’s left, is very important. It makes sense to do what we can to preserve the world we live in.

One very important feature of the new GDPR legislation that came into effect on 25 May 2018 is the correct disposal of confidential waste.

Under the new law, every company who has clients within the EU is now responsible for the appropriate disposal of GDPR waste, including items such as hard drives, old computers, memory sticks, old client data files, paperwork, and marketing materials.

How can you get GDPR disposal right?

The first thing to know is that the destruction of any form of data is classed as a form of data processing under GDPR. The best way to ensure that you stay within the law is to employ a secure data destruction provider such as Business Waste to carry out data disposal for you.

We will securely collect any unwanted media from your business and destroy it by means of approved GDPR shredding or GDPR recycling procedures. As per GDPR requirements, we certify that the data has been destroyed, providing you with a clear audit trail from the beginning of the process to the end.

Which items of equipment should you consider for GDPR waste management processing?

Where electronic data is concerned, you need to know that hard drives can be held within any form of electronic device from CCTV systems, to photocopiers and printers. Under GDPR you are required to identify all these data sources and you must be able to account for how long you have stored data on them and the reasons for doing so.

When you are auditing your equipment, you must consider every kind of media storage device your company uses, including:

• Hard disk drives
• Media tapes
• Solid state drives
• CDs
• DVDs
• Mobile phones
• Memory sticks
• Laptops
• Tablets

During the disposal process, we remove the hard drives from the equipment so you can be sure that all the data contained within them is processed right through to destruction. There’s no risk of any of your data being stolen and your company suffering a serious data breach.

Paper documents and files

Paper documents and files should be disposed of by shredding them on-site. Once the documents have been shredded, the remnants should be disposed of securely by bagging them and placing them in one of our bins. Be sure to store the bin in an area that cannot be accessed easily so that the contents cannot be stolen.

We can ensure that your business remains safely within GDPR waste disposal requirements. For more information and to find out more about waste management, contact our friendly team today.

Untangling the hair grip problem. It goes by many names – it might be called the hairpin, the bobby pin or the hair grip.

But whatever you call it, The UK’s waste management agency have called for these hair essentials to be made exclusively from recycled materials.

BusinessWaste.co.uk argue that the much-used hair grip is used and lost so frequently by women around the world that they risk becoming an unnecessary blight on the environment, as well as a huge waste of materials.

Spokesperson Mark Hall from waste collections company BusinessWaste.co.uk said: “While boys might not know exactly what they’re looking at when they see one, girls can’t do without that small piece of metal that somehow gets absolutely everywhere.

“Sometimes they might only be used once and then thrown away or lost, which is why you see them littering everywhere from gyms to pavements, workplaces, pubs and anywhere else ladies with hair might go.

“Because we know how frequently they’re discarded, it’s only right that they should be made from recycled materials, otherwise we’re just wasting resources on something that is effectively disposable.”

A survey was conducted by BusinessWaste.co.uk which involved over 3000 people. When asked where they’d seen hair grips discarded, people had some strange and interesting responses. 53% of people said they’d seen hair grips in public bathrooms, even down the loo in some cases, although it’s not clear whether they ended up there on purpose or by accident.

86% of people had found them in their own homes with no idea how they got there.

Of the 86% who had found them in their homes the most common places where

Under the bed
Down the side of sofa
Bathroom floor
Draws

And some odder finds including

In the dishwasher
In the toilet

9% of men surveyed by BusinessWaste.co.uk said they’d been put in a tricky situation at some point in their lives, with a girlfriend finding a stray hair grip that wasn’t hers in their home or car.

Steve, 33, Leeds said: “I was seeing a couple of girls at once when I was at uni, one didn’t go to my university and one did so their paths never crossed. I thought I was being really smart and careful, but then the uni girlfriend, Sarah, found a hair grip in my bathroom left by the other girl, Laura, I was rumbled. I tried to convince Sarah it was her own hair grip but she had really short hair and never used them – and neither did I.

“The irony is that Laura later found Sarah’s earring under my bed so she dumped me too. Lads need to know what these things are otherwise we’re going to slip up, that weird little bit of metal can ruin your life.”

It’s estimated that tens of millions of hair grips are sold in the UK each year, with many coming in multipacks of 50 or more. On average, each one of these hair grips lasts up to two weeks before it’s lost or broken, inevitably ending up in landfill.

BusinessWaste.co.uk say that switching to recycled materials would be a much more environmentally-friendly and sensible way to make hair grips, and would have a considerable impact on our planet considering how many are bought each year

Read next – A guide to hair salon disposal

Shoppers no longer bothered about the 5p fee as carrier bag use shows signs of bouncing back.

Supermarket plastic bag use is showing signs of increasing again as the 5p charge for a carrier no longer acts as a deterrent.

That’s the view of the UK’s waste and recycling company, which thinks that now, is the time to increase the fee to a more realistic level.

The BusinessWaste.co.uk company suggests – after carrying out a poll of supermarket customers – that a charge of £1 is the only way to finally make plastic carrier bags a thing of the past.

“The introduction of the 5p charge in England led to an 85% decrease in the number of plastic carrier bags being used,” BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s Mark Hall says.

“Unfortunately, 5p is no longer the shock to the system it once was, and we’re certain that the next government statistics will see a significant rise.”

With the next set of statistics due at the end of July, BusinessWaste.co.uk is confident that the annual figure will rise above the billion mark for the first time since the charge was introduced.

Previously, English shoppers were getting through seven billion single-use bags every year.

“We want to see that figure fall to zero within five years,” says Hall, “and the only way that can be done is by increasing the charge, while making reusable bags cheap and widely available.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk polled nearly 2,000 shoppers who patronise a wide range of stores from the budget end to the luxury end of the market. We found widespread agreement that 5p was no longer a hurdle to asking for a plastic bag, though there was not a great deal consensus on raising the charge.

When the 5p charge was introduced, did it stop you using plastic carrier bags?

Yes: 84%

No: 16%

Are you now routinely paying 5p for carrier bags at the supermarket?

Yes, for all my shopping: 24%

Yes, for some of my shopping: 38%

No: 36%

“It’s clear that we’re backsliding on our shopping habits, and the main reason is that we no longer care about adding a few pence onto our shopping bill,” says Business Waste’s Mark Hall.

“And that’s straight from the mouths of shoppers who find the whole performance of remembering your reusable bags a bit of a palaver.

“That’s especially the case for those who pop into their convenience store for a few items on their way home, now accounting for a staggering number of supermarket visits.”

And while there’s still resistance to increasing the fee (with even some demanding it be scrapped), it looks like that the only way to increase use of reusable bags is to hit shoppers in the pocket.

What’s the most you would be willing to pay for a supermarket carrier bag?

Nothing: 3%

5p: 16%

10p: 23%

20p: 38%

50p: 14%

£1: 6%

Mark Hall: “It’s hardly surprising that there’s resistance to raising the charge to 50p or a pound, but that’s the pressure we need to put on shoppers to make them change their habits.

“Raising the plastic bag fee to 20p – while it would be great for the charities who benefitted by millions in the last year – would only leave people in their comfort zone where they won’t miss the money.”

Says the BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson: “It’s got to be set to a high level for the charge to actually work.”

Can we decide what to do with fidget spinners once the craze is over?

Britain’s kids (and quite a few adults) have succumbed to the fidget spinner craze that’s swept the world, but like all crazes it’s going to come crashing down sooner rather than later.

And that’s when millions of the metal and plastic devices will end up in the bin, with the vast majority going straight to Britain’s already brimming landfill sites.

That’s the opinion of the UK’s waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk, who says the spinners will go the same way as loom bands did before – into the bin and a big hole in the ground.

“We’ve seen it before, we’re seeing it now, and we’ll see it again,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall. “The market’s saturated with the things, kids have moved on, and there are literally millions of them gathering dust in the shops.”

The problem is two-fold, says Hall. Firstly, there’s the millions of spinners in the hands of (currently) happy users who will soon get bored with them.

“They’ll either gather dust in a drawer before being sold as a genuine antique on Ebay in ten years’ time, or they’ll end up in the bin,” he says. “My money’s on the latter.”

And the second – far larger problem is the unsold stock filling shop backrooms and warehouses all over the country.

“We saw this with loom bands,” says Hall, “Shops and mail order companies over-ordered like they were going out of fashion, and suddenly they did just that.”

No amount of discounting will shift them, and they’ve got to go somewhere, Business Waste says.

That somewhere is straight into the bin as companies cut their losses, and BusinessWaste.co.uk hopes this is done responsibly, as the spinners contain parts that can be recycled.

What are fidget spinners made from?

• It all depends on the quality of the spinner
• The best ones are made from high-quality metals such as titanium, brass, stainless steel or copper
• At the cheap and more popular end of the market, they’re dominated by aluminium, low-quality steel and padded out with plastic
• But whatever the manufacturing process, the metals are recyclable

“If they go straight into the general waste – and that’s the temptation for many individuals and companies who will eventually be sick of the sight of them – that’s a huge waste of resources, not to mention precious landfill space,” BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s Mark Hall says.

The BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesman recalls a previous craze that backfired: “Back in 2014, landfill sites looked like an accident at a spaghetti factory because there was so much loom band waste from shops and warehouses – companies didn’t know whether to recycle them or not, so just binned the lot.”

And that’s going to be the same with fidget spinners, as the plastic content sows doubt in the mind of those making decisions on which bin to use.

“There really ought to be separate plastic bins for fidget spinners this autumn,” Hall says, “Not to mention separate areas at rubbish tips and fidget spinner amnesty boxes at charity shops and school reception areas.

“We can hoover up millions of the things if we do this right.”

There is an easy way to get rid of them, though. Business Waste’s advice to mum and dad for when the kids eventually get bored with their devices is simple.

“Take a family trip down to your community waste facility. Keep the kids in the car for safety’s sake, and bung the spinners in the bin marked ‘metals’. Job done.”

Lewisham is the worst London borough for recycling household waste

The south-east London borough of Lewisham has been named the worst borough for household recycling in London following research carried out by a private sector waste company.

The information was taken from official data collected by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and local authorities.

London borough of Westminster performs poorly on recycling survey

The national average for householder recycling is 44.9% in England.

According to the latest statistics, only 17.1% of residents in Lewisham are recycling their waste. While the residents of Newham aren’t performing much better, with only 17.2% their taking the time to recycle.

Out of the 32 London boroughs, it was Bexley which came out on top in this recycling war. An impressive 54% of householders here are regular recyclers; more than the national average.

Bromley and Kingston-upon-Thames were the only other boroughs beating the national average, with rates of 48% and 45.7% respectively.

Westminster was ranked 30 out of the 32 boroughs for its householders commitment to recycling, with a rate of 19.1%.

One industry expert involved in the research said he was surprised that the rate for Westminster was so low below the national average, considering it is one of the wealthiest London boroughs.

London’s seemingly poor recycling attitude has been blamed on the city’s growing population, which makes recycling harder to enforce, and the number of rented accommodation compared to properties occupied by homeowners.

Please follow this link for more info about our waste and recycling services.

Farmers top the list, with office workers at the bottom of the pile

The best workers in the country for recycling their rubbish are farmers, it’s been revealed – and they’re so good at it, they should be paid by the government to show the rest of us how it’s done.

That’s the finding of a British waste and recycling company which surveyed various sectors across the UK economy to see which group produced the highest percentage of recyclable waste compared to waste sent to landfill or incineration.

York-based BusinessWaste.co.uk found that sectors such as factories and farms, whose profits depend on reusing and recycling as much as possible came out on top, while office workers came bottom.

“Office workers generally aren’t aware of the cost implications of throwing everything into their desk-side bin,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “And in a large organisation that can soon add up to literally tonnes of rubbish.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk looked a tallies from its own operators to find out which areas of the UK economy recycled the best and found:

Britain’s top commercial recyclers:

1. Farmers
2. Factories
3. Pubs & restaurants
4. Retail
5. Hospitals and clinics
6. Schools

Britain’s worst commercial recyclers:

1. Office-based businesses
2. Night clubs
3. Takeaway food establishments

“Why are famers go good at recycling?” Hall asks. “The answer is simple – they’ve been doing it for centuries, and they have a waste-not-want-not ethic that has survived down the years.

“From small family-run farms to giant agri-businesses, it’s the same – everything is collected, assessed and re-used where possible.

“Only the absolute detritus is thrown away, and then only with reluctance,” says the BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson.

BusinessWaste.co.uk say factory owners and operators have the same sort of ethic, but for entirely different reasons.

“Every tonne of unrecyclable waste they produce costs them money to get rid of,” says Hall. “Industry has gone to great lengths to find alternative uses for its waste, often selling it on to another sector that finds it useful for their own products.”

Waste rubber and glass going on to be constituent ingredients of low-noise road surfaces is a fantastic example of this cooperation between industrial sectors, Business Waste says.

Offices, on the other hand, have little incentive to boost their recycling waste, and many simply can’t be bothered – or simply don’t have the time in a pressured environment – to move from their desks to find the bin for their empty drink can.

And that’s why farmers should be employed by the Department of the Environment (DEFRA) as recycling ‘champions’ to pass on their knowledge to the slackers and refuseniks at the bottom of the survey.

“They’ve got generations of knowledge that could and should be passed on to others,” says Hall, “And because it results in everybody saving money and resources, it’s a scheme that will easily pay for itself in the long run.

“And the sight of a farmer telling a nightclub owner how to improve their business margins is something I dearly want to see.”

Charities losing out as criminals leave their own bins in town centres

Local and national charities are being cheated out of income by an ambitious criminal who has started leaving fake clothes banks in towns and cities.

Fresh from scams involving convincing-looking plastic charity bags being pushed through people’s doors, the fraudsters are now thinking big, a national waste and recycling company says.

According to BusinessWaste.co.uk, it’s got to the point where local authorities are impounding dishonestly-placed “charity” bins which only exist to make crooks richer.

“The people are a blight on decent society,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “They prey on people’s charitable instincts just for personal profit.”

BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours program highlighted the difficulty that local charities face against dishonest traders who steal donations of clothing from literally under their noses – with Manchester City Council telling the BBC that they had identified at least two recycling bins in the city with no markings.

“It’s certainly enterprising, but the bottom line is that they are taking money away from the needy,” says Hall, “And apart from trying to catch the crooks in the act of picking up their bin, there’s very little the authorities can do to apprehend them.”

The newly discovered fake bin con follows the tried-and-tested scam of fake charity bag collections, as well as stealing legitimate charity bags left out on doorsteps

“People are bombarded with charity bags, and it’s sometimes difficult to tell which are real and which are fake,” says Business Waste’s Mark Hall. “Legitimate charities are finding their names on fake clothes bags when they’re not even collecting in the area.”

And what happens to the dishonestly collected items?

The gangs will sort through “donations” and sell the best on the internet.

Other items are driven to Eastern Europe, where there is a boom in British-style clothing to be fed in local stores. None of the profits are returned to UK charities.

The rest, however, creates a problem, says BusinessWaste.co.uk.

“These items – to put it mildly – are rubbish,” says Hall, “And these are not the kind of people who are going to pay trade rates at the local rubbish tip.”

Instead, the criminal gangs will double up on their dishonesty by fly-tipping their unwanted clothes, shoes and other items.

“They’ve got no social conscience, and they don’t care that the likes of you and I have to pay for the clean-up out of our Council Tax,” Hall says.

But with so many people trying to make a quick pound by fleecing charities, there are still sure-fire ways of making sure that you’re giving to the good guys.

“Fill those charity bags that come through your door,” says Hall, “and then take them to your nearest charity shop, who will likely welcome you with open arms.

“They don’t even care if your bag has another charity’s name on!”

What many people don’t know is that clothes, textiles, and shoes charity shops can’t sell are collected and taken away for genuine recycling. That way, even your most “useless” of gifts still raises funds.

BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s Mark Hall advises people to keep an eye open for fake collectors and to report them to local trading standards.

“That way, we can get these criminals off the streets, and restore trust in a system that they’re trying to con.”

Pay-as-you-throw schemes would reduce waste production and increase recycling, according to the report

The Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+) has published a report claiming that pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste schemes would increase recycling rates and help reduce the amount of waste produced each year.

The report, titled ‘Cross-analysis of ‘Pay-As-You-Throw’ schemes in selected EU municipalities’, discusses the financial and environmental benefits and potential negatives of introducing pay-as-you-throw waste systems in European municipalities.

A PAYT system would reduce waste production and increase recycling, according to the report

The study focuses on PAYT systems in seven European cities in Sweden, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.

According to the report, nations across the globe are not doing enough to tackle the increase in product consumption and waste production, caused by emerging economies, recovering economies and a global population growth.

The report states that: “Connecting consumption with environmental impact will make up a critical part of addressing this challenge, and PAYT offers a potential piece of this puzzle by giving citizens an incentive to reduce waste.”

The possibility of a PAYT system has been discussed by the UK government. Such a scheme would see residents charged for municipal waste disposal based on the amount they produce.

However, Defra resources minister, Rory Stewart, said the implementation of a PAYT system in the UK would receive too much public objection to be successful.

The report itself also addressed the potential problems of a PAYT scheme. It states that a ‘one fit for all’ would not work as “no municipality is the same”.

It also adds that local authorities would have to implement more frequent collections and also be prepared to educate residents on waste reduction and recycling, however, this would not completely reduce the risk of increased fly-tipping incidents.

Please click here for more info about BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s waste management services.

Return of the long-dead tradition is well overdue a comeback to increase recycling rates

One of Britain’s favorite childhood memories is long overdue a comeback in a bid to increase national recycling rates.

Paying a deposit on a glass bottle, which is then refunded when returned to a participating retailer, effectively died out in the UK with the advent of the disposable plastic bottle, but Britain’s fastest-growing waste management and recycling company says now is the time to bring it back.

According to York-based BusinessWaste.co.uk, figures from the United States – where bottle deposits are still widespread – show that the higher the deposit, the more likely a bottle is returned intact.

“We often look at the past with rose-tinted glasses,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “but the bottle deposit was something that really did work.”

In the post-war period, children could make themselves a reasonable fortune by scouring their local area for empty bottles, which they’d then take back to the shop to receive a few pence each.

“It was killed off by plastic bottles, but that came with a legacy of millions of tonnes of waste in hedgerows and kerbs filled with bottles,” says Hall. “It’s time to end this epidemic of wastefulness.”

It’s something that worked very well back then, and can work again now, Business Waste says, and the reasons are simple:

• Recycling glass keeps production costs down for drinks manufacturers and bottlers, as it’s far cheaper to make bottles from used glass than it is to make new from raw materials
• Recycling glass is also greener than using plastic bottles as there are few waste products
• Human nature means that people are more likely to recycle if there is a reward

“The furore over the 5p charge for supermarket carrier bags so how worked up we get as a nation get about very small sums of money,” Hall says.

“We can turn this negative energy into a positive by rewarding customers for returning recyclables.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk says that in the United States, where container deposits are widespread, there’s a 70% return rate when it’s set at 5 cents, rising to a 97% success rate in Michigan where it’s set at 10 cents. In states where there’s no deposit scheme, recycling rates are only 33%.

“If the state of Michigan can achieve a 97% return rate with only a modest bottle deposit, then so can Britain,” BusinessWaste.co.uk ‘s Mark Hall says. “We expect that a scheme set at 10p per bottle will be a roaring success in the UK.

“Not only that, it’ll encourage a new wave of school-age entrepreneurs to get up and set about collecting as many bottles as they can,” he says.

There might even be a modern twist on the idea, BusinessWaste.co.uk suggests.

The burden of paying out return rewards could be switched away from shopkeepers, and could instead be paid onto a loyalty card account which can be “cashed out” at any time.

The reward would naturally be the same as the deposit paid, but it virtually guarantees continued custom and gives a good reason to continue returning used containers.

“Sometimes the old ways really are the best ways, and it’s time we reconsidered container deposit legislation in the UK,” Hall says.

“It’s great for recycling rates, it’s great for British industry, but best of all – it’s great for kids’ pocket money.“

Call to redistribute tens of thousands of publications to sick and needy

Every week, tens of thousands of unsold comics and magazines are returned from shops to retailers, who send them to be pulped, it’s been revealed.

Instead of this destruction, one national waste and recycling company suggests that they are redistributed at cost to hospitals and charities where they can be enjoyed.

According to the BusinessWaste.co.uk, there’s a particular problem with comics for children which have free gifts attached to the front cover, meaning they are often sent to be burned or buried in landfill.

“It’s an extraordinary waste,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk, spokesperson Mark Hall, “Because there are thousands of kids who’d appreciate those comics and gifts.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk, says that all of these unsold publications are perfectly saleable.

“While some of these are retained for the back issue market, huge numbers are simply destroyed within days of being replaced on the shelves by the next edition,” Hall says. “And with recycling figures stalling, it defies logic.”

Instead, Hall suggests, there should be an approved list of hospital children’s wards, nurseries, Sure Start centres and other organisations for young people which could receive a limited number of unsold comics and magazines for the enjoyment of patients and pupils.

Opportunity for charities

“It wouldn’t be a freebie,” Hall says, “The magazines could be bought back from the wholesalers at a price to cover their costs, and could even be funded by charitable donations.”

With the help of children’s charities – and this seems an excellent project for BBC Children in Need to become involved in – the gift of reading and play could easily be passed onto young people who need it the most, Business Waste proposes.

A straw poll carried out by BusinessWaste.co.uk, found firm backing for the idea among the British public:

• 94% said they’d support a charity-driven scheme
• 6% said they would not

“The nay-sayers have a valid point in that it might hit sales from the newsstands,” says Hall, “And that’s why we say such a scheme would be limited in scope to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Shops and publishers have businesses to run, after all!”

One nurse told BusinessWaste.co.uk,: “You should see the books and comics that we have for the children – they’re falling apart at the seams, and I think even prisoners get a better deal. We rely on what parents bring in, but it’s depressing to see kids’ get bored because they have so little to read and do.

“A regular supply of recent comics and magazines would be brilliant,” she said.

There may even be scope to extend the idea to old people’s homes and hospital wards, where decent reading material is at a premium.

“It’s about improving people’s quality of life by keeping their brains active,” says Mark Hall.

Many doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries now use subscription schemes to keep their waiting rooms interesting with up-to-date magazines, and BusinessWaste.co.uk, says extending a charity scheme to the older generation would be careful not to tread on the toes of this expanding business model.

The aim, Hall says, is to stop magazines and comics going to waste by giving them to the people who need them most, but can’t usually get access to them.

“As a waste company we positively hate seeing perfectly good items destroyed,” he says, “And that’s why we want to see kids and comics reunited.

“It’ll be good for the environment, and it will be great for young imaginations, too.”

Alupro research finds that the UK’s 2015 recycling rate for aluminium is seven per cent higher than thought

Research carried out by the environmental consultancy firm, Resource Future, on behalf of the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) has found that the UK recycled 55 per cent of its aluminium waste in 2015, which is seven per cent higher than the initial figure.

The Alupro study discovered that more than 10,000 tonnes of aluminium recycling went unaccounted for when the 2015 aluminium recycling rate was calculated.

Aluminium can recycling centre

According to the initial figures, 48 per cent of aluminium packaging waste was recycled in 2015 and 60 per cent of used aluminium cans was also recycled. The combined recycling rate from these two figures means that the UK had already achieved the 49 per cent aluminium recycling target which had been set for 2015.

The research by Alupro found that more than 10,000 tonnes of aluminium recycling had gone unreported through the packaging recycling note (PRN) system. This means that the UK recycled 86,200 tonnes of aluminium in 2015, as opposed to the original figure of 76,027 tonnes.

Alupro used the EU’s methodology system (as set out in the European Commission’s new Circular Economy package) for calculating recycling rates. The executive director of Alupro, Rick Hindley, commented: “It is vital that the measurement system we use in the UK for calculating recycling performance is aligned to the methodology used throughout Europe.”

The study suggests that 55 per cent of the aluminium waste produced in the UK in 2015 was recycled. In addition, 69 per cent of aluminium cans were recycled, rather than the initial 60 per cent figure.

Mr Hindley added: “Our research clearly demonstrates the need to encourage more reprocessors to become accredited to ensure that the PRN system provides an accurate record of recycling performance.”

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Waste businesses vie for electronic goods to release a small fortune in precious metals

There’s a new buzzword in the waste and recycling industry, and it’s “urban mining” – the act of reclaiming electronic goods to cash in on the precious metals inside.

With commodity prices still at high levels as investors turn away from diving oil prices, recycled gold and silver inside discarded electricals suddenly make sound financial sense, Britain’s fastest growing waste company says.

According to York-based BusinessWaste.co.uk, a standard laptop could contain up to £25 worth of gold at current prices, while high-end desktop machines could contain even more.

“Recycling companies are now seeing the contents of the WEEE bin as a quick win,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “And they’ll take these goods away from their previous owners for free because – with the right tools and expertise – they represent a superb return on investment.”

And it’s not just obsolete electronics being cleared off the desks and warehouse shelves of companies who no longer need them. The habit of throwing tonne upon tonne of electronic goods into landfill mean our hills are – quite literally – full of gold.

“The high-end electronics industry relies on gold, silver and other precious and rare-earth metals to supply ever-faster and ever more reliable devices,” says Hall. “And it’s far cheaper to recycle these metals than it is to mine it from ore.

“And with prices at high levels, it has suddenly become all the more urgent to find precious metals the cheapest way possible – and that’s from obsolete equipment.”

What’s in an old laptop?

• Some 320 tons of gold and 7,500 tons of silver are used in the global production of personal computers every year
• It’s cheaper to recover previously refined precious metals that it is to prospect, mine and process “new” gold from the ground
• According to the Dell Computer company, the circuit boards inside a laptop can contain about £25 worth of gold
• A mobile phone can contain £3-4 worth of gold, and a tablet computer around £10
• Older computers will contain more precious metals, meaning some company storerooms could represent a treasure trove

Effective urban mining means increased margins for the waste and recycling industry, and that results in more competition between companies to uncover waste from large companies who are replacing their technology.

“At any given moment, a large blue chip company or public service organisation in the United Kingdom is undergoing a technology refresh programme,” Hall explains. “They usually retain their old equipment for data integrity reasons, but will soon wish to dispose of it safely and with all due respect to confidentiality.”

That’s when a responsible waste management company becomes involved. They’ll come under contract to make sure that sensitive equipment is thoroughly destroyed, while trying to maximise their return from recovering metals and plastics from the gear they’re “mining”, Business Waste says.

“It’s a smart balancing act,” says Hall. “Verifiable destruction combined with the smart recovery of precious metals can now be achieved by companies with the right expertise and right equipment, and it’s these urban miners who are going to profit from British industry’s continuing need for up-to-date equipment and readily-available raw materials.”

That’s going to mean deals with local authorities, waste handlers and all kinds of businesses and public sector organisations to have their unwanted electronics diverted away from the rubbish tip, BusinessWaste.co.uk says. “It’s recycling by another name, only with much higher stakes,” says Hall.

There are also moves to address the millions of items underground at landfill tips, but this is a more complex process that comes with its own risks and safety issues.

“But it’s entirely possible that urban mining means just that – digging down for old reusable goods. Britain’s rubbish tips are full of precious metals, just waiting to be unlocked,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk s Mark Hall.

With the average office computer having a service life of around five years, hundreds of thousands of processors containing vital metals enter the waste and recycling system every year, BusinessWaste.co.uk says. It’s only now that we’re realising how important it is to capture as many as possible to save the UK economy a small fortune in gold.

“British industry has the expertise to unlock this money,” says Hall. “We’ve got the tools – let’s get on with it.”

Germany is the top recycling nation

A new highly-detailed data report produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows the municipal recycling rates for its member countries.

The report shows the good, the average and the ugly; from the current leader, Germany, topping the table with a 65% recycling rate; to the USA, which is lagging behind many European countries, with a 35% recycling rate; and then to the struggling Turkey, which recycled a pitiful 1% of the nation’s municipal rubbish in 2013.

Here is a list of the top OECD nations that are leading the recycling race. (The results were collated by OECD and reflect the municipal waste that was recycled and composted in 2013):

1. Germany (65%)
2. South Korea (59%)
3. Slovenia (58%)
4. Austria (58%)
5. Belgium (55%)
6. Switzerland (51%)
7. Sweden (50%)
8. Netherlands (50%)

12. United Kingdom (43%)

In contrast, the following is a list of the OECD nations that are currently at the bottom of the recycling pile:

1. Turkey (1%)
2. Chile (1%)
3. Mexico (5%)
4. Slovakia (11%)
5. Japan (19%)
6. Greece (19%)
7. Israel (19%)
8. Czech Republic (24%)

According to Forbes, a report produced by Eurostat claims that Germany sent just 63.8million tonnes out of 353million tonnes of municipal waste to landfill in 2012 and just 11 million tonnes went to the incinerators. The remainder was either recycled or used for energy recovery.

There is a suggestion that Germany’s recycling success is partly due to its plastic bottle and aluminium can deposit system. One can often see unemployed/homeless people rooting around inside bins for any discarded bottles and cans. However, such systems are also used in Canada, where the recycling rate is just 24%.

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Public sector businesses believe they are better equipped to tackle world sanitation problem

A severe lack of hygienic sanitation in developing countries throughout the world causes 700,000 deaths every year, according to World Bank, who say the problem is responsible for many development issues.

Many private and public sector initiatives have been set up to tackle the problem as the United Nations makes ‘universal access to hygienic sanitation by 2030’ one of their Sustainable Development Goals.

The senior manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Jyoti Shukla, spoke out about the importance of safe sanitation for the world’s population. Ms Shukla said: “Stunting and malnutrition are directly related to poor sanitation; quality of learning and productivity is affected by sanitation; and dignity and empowerment of women and girls is influenced by how we deliver sanitation.”

Sanivation, a company based in Kenya, is just one of the private sector businesses tackling the issue. They install safe toilet stations in poverty stricken areas, slums and refugee camps and carry out weekly collections to remove the human waste.

Sanivation then treats the human waste at its processing plant, where it is mixed with agricultural products to create briquettes. The briquettes are then sold on to farmers who use them as fertilizer on their land. The business is making money from the collection of human waste, but the work that it is doing is important for developing countries.

Chief executive of Sanivation, Andrew Foote, believes that, in the case of providing safe sanitation to a wide network, private sector businesses are more effective than public sector and charity organisations.

Mr Foote said that, despite making progress: “…with rates of urbanisation and population growth, despite the efforts of many actors, the number of people lacking access to sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa and in urban areas has actually been increasing in the last 10 years.”

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Recycle your paint and save thousands of pounds per year. Painting and decorating trade could save tons of hazardous waste annually

The commercial painting and decorating trade could save thousands of pounds every year if it used teamwork to recycle its unwanted paint.

A national waste and recycling company says that most paints used in the industry are classified as hazardous waste, meaning that it costs the trade a small fortune to dispose of safely and legally.

Instead, the BusinessWaste.co.uk company suggests that the trade should take part in a paint swap scheme so that as little is wasted as possible. Business Waste suggests medium-sized companies can save up to £10,000 per year in this manner.

“We reckon that even a one-man-band painting and decorating contractor can save thousands every year in waste site gate fees,” says Business Waste spokesperson Mark Hall. “Teaming up with their local competitors and colleagues means that they needn’t throw that excess paint into the skip.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk spoke to painters and decorators, from man-and-van operators to major companies, and found that no matter what the scale of the organisation, most contracts tend to over-estimate the amount of paint they need by between 5 – 10%.