Reigate and Banstead Glass Recycling Project

Remade South East was engaged by Surrey County Council to increase commercial glass recycling collections across Reigate and Banstead.

Remade South East's role was divided into two phases. The first was to expand and promote an existing commercial glass collection round in Reigate and Banstead by marketing the service to pubs, clubs, restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions and commercial catering outlets. The Second was to help Surrey County Council meet a target of evidencing 1,000 tonnes of waste commercial glass produced by Surrey businesses had been diverted away from landfill between 2005 - 2008.

A door step survey of 21 businesses, mainly pubs, restaurants, hotels and cafes, was conducted in Reigate High Street in November 2007 to identify how many businesses recycled their glass waste and which waste management companies offered a glass recycling collection service. The results showed that 8 of the 21 businesses interviewed recycled their glass waste; with 13 not currently recycling. Encouragingly, 10 out of the 13 businesses that didn't recycle stated they would be interested in paying for a glass recycling service if this reduced their general waste collection costs.

The survey also indicated that there were two main waste management companies operating a glass recycling collection in the area; Biffa and The Recycling Partnership. Both companies were invited to submit an expression of interest in order to choose which company would participate in the project and have their service promoted to the businesses in Reigate and Banstead. The Recycling Partnership were chosen as the company that could offer the best and most flexible service.

A promotional leaflet was produced and distributed to all the businesses in the area that produced large quantities of glass waste. The result of which saw 15 new enquiries and 8 new contracts for The Recycling Partnership service. To achieve the second project objective Remade worked with The Recycling Partnership to gather data on the amount of commercial glass they had recycling from Surrey sources between February 2007 and April 2008. Work with The Recycling Partnership lead to the evidencing of 3,030 tonnes of waste glass being diverted away from landfill during this time period which helped Surrey County Council exceed their target of 1,000 tonnes and showed how valuable it is to The Recycling Partnership to keep up to date records.

Recommendations for the future included continued promotion and expansion of the glass collection service to further areas around Surrey. As well as waste partners being encouraged to keep weighbridge tickets and other monitoring data that will allow greater ease in identifying the origin of materials.

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