Biffa, a sustainable waste management business, welcomes the next step in the Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy to consult on key issues which will accelerate positive change for our customers and the environment.
The consultations signal progress on the Government’s Resources and Waste strategy to facilitate discussion and expert advice from businesses to Government to help achieve the goals of eliminating avoidable waste by 2050, achieving a 65 per cent recycling rate and for all plastic packaging to be recyclable by 2025.
We believe measures like the ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ scheme should encourage and incentivise waste producers to rethink packaging design for recyclability and help to ensure that products which go in the bin are recyclable to begin with, supported by mandatory and unambiguous labelling like the OPRL system.
The introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) could be successful in reducing ‘on-the-go waste’ but needs to be easy to use and readily accessible.
Head of Environment and External Affairs Jeff Rhodes said: “It is critical the Government listens to us and I welcome the consultations launched today. At Biffa we have valuable expertise, we are a leading UK company when it comes to sustainable waste management, surplus produce redistribution and plastic recycling. Our expertise can help Government achieve its ambitions of eliminating avoidable waste by 2050, achieving a 65 per cent recycling rate and for all plastic packaging to be recyclable by 2025.”
Biffa a leader in surplus produce redistribution
The acquisition of Company Shop Group in Feb 2021 strengthened Biffa’s leadership position in the UK circular economy. CSG’s redistribution services complement Biffa’s established waste and recycling services, and supply of closed loop recycled raw materials. As the only commercial redistributor of scale in the UK, Company Shop Group is the market-leader in a growing sector, with a strong, credible growth plan.
Biffa a pioneer in plastics recycling
Biffa is a leader in plastic recycling, having built the UK’s first food grade PET closed loop plastic recycling facility in Seaham, County Durham. In the last five years Biffa has invested over £54.5m in plastics recycling infrastructure to meet the target to quadruple plastic recycling capacity by 2030.
In March 2021 Biffa announced a further £13m investment to increase capacity of high density polyethene (HDPE) recycling at its facility in Washington, Sunderland. This will allow Biffa to recycle a further 14,000 tonnes of HDPE, a material that is commonly used for milk bottles, growing its total annual capacity to 39,000 tonnes – or 1.6bn bottles a year.
The new investment will take Biffa’s overall plastic recycling capacity to 155,000 tonnes each year.