WRAP Launches Business Recycling Program

A series of feasibility trials to encourage small and medium sized businesses to recycle their waste have been launched across the United Kingdom. The program is being funded by the Waste & Resources Action Programme.

The goal of the trail, which will run for six months, is to develop convenient and cost effective services to make it easier for small and medium sized enterprises to recycle.

Forming part of WRAP’s SME Recycling Programme, the trials will assess recycling schemes for the construction and commercial food industries, site-specific services for business parks and industrial estates and collection schemes for small retailers and offices.

The trials will evaluate a range of issues involved in providing SMEs with effective recycling programs. Factors assessed will include effective ways to recruit SMEs on to recycling services, collection techniques and frequencies and charging mechanisms.

The results will build on the knowledge gained during the first series of trials undertaken last year.

Five of the trials will investigate the best method of collecting recyclable waste from business parks and industrial estates. Axion Recycling and Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council will target 12 industrial estates in the Stockport area to encourage them to recycle paper, cardboard and plastic through the use of shared collection facilities on the estates.

Groundwork Yorkshire and the Humber will be providing a recycling facility for businesses at the Langthwaite Grange Industrial Estate, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and The Laundry, part of Bioregional Development Group, will be working with multi-tenancy buildings in central London to reduce office waste and encourage recycling.

In Wales, Bridgend County Borough Council is working in partnership with Greenwood Services Ltd, Groundwork Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot to boost recycling on the Brackla/Litchard Industrial Estate in Bridgend by collecting mixed recyclables such as paper, glass, cans, plastic and cardboard.

In Scotland, LEEP Recycling, part of the sustainable development charity Changeworks, will be targeting 15 business parks and industrial estates in Edinburgh and Lothian to collect mixed recyclables.

Three projects will collect recyclables from small businesses. Mid Devon Community Recycling aims to provide a flexible recycling service for small businesses in more rural areas and First Mile, based in central London, is targeting small city-based retailers and offices to develop an appropriate recycling collection service for businesses who have little or no storage space.

In Scotland, LEEP Recycling will collect electronic scrap equipment from 150 small businesses. The company will be working with Restructa, which specializes in recycling computers.

For the construction sector, a trial, managed by Axion Recycling, will offer smaller building companies three recycling service options - drop off facilities, collection by skips or collection in bulk bags - to suit the size of business and site being worked on. The trials will take place in Lymm, near Warrington, Manchester, and Peterborough and materials collected will include timber, glass, plasterboard, cardboard packaging, plastic and aggregates.