Andy Begley

The annual Tub2Pub recycling campaign runs in January and February, and money raised from the recycled plastic is donated to Greene King’s partner Macmillan Cancer Support, helping the charity continue to support people living with cancer.

This year, 150,000 plastic tubs were collected, that’s around a 500% increase on previous totals. It means 21 tonnes of ‘hard to recycle’ polypropylene plastic has been saved from landfill and recycled while raising £12,600 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Commenting on the results, Vance Fairman-Smith, Greene King’s supply chain director said: “We have been blown away by the incredible success of Tub2Pub this year! It is brilliant how it has really captured people’s attention. These record-breaking results show just how much appetite there is for recycling and fundraising. It is great to see this increase in engagement with people and businesses across our communities. Huge thanks to everyone who collected the tubs to drop off at their local Greene King pub. It’s such good news for the environment and for charity.”

This is the fourth year Greene King has run Tub2Pub. Overall it has collected 26,253kg of plastic, which is around 230,000 tubs, raising £23,908 for Macmillan.

co-cre8 is working alongside Burger King UK (BKUK) to assist them in taking a significant step towards environmental sustainability by implementing paper cup recycling trials at selected sites across the UK. Recognising the environmental impact of single-use cups, co-cre8 is assisting BKUK in diverting their paper cups (at selected trial sites) away from ‘general waste’ and ensuring they are segregated for onwards recycling in the UK.

The paper cup waste must be segregated and collected free from contamination, so BKUK enlisted the help of co-cre8. co-cre8 specialise in creating bespoke cup collection stations that are engaging, user friendly and completely customisable to brand spec.

An innovative new lottery has been launched which encourages consumers to recycle used paper cups throughout the UK. In return for binning their cup at participating outlets, users can enter the free CupLotto® prize draw to win regular spot prizes and a weekly jackpot of £1,000.

CupLotto® is the brain-child of circular economy experts, co-cre8 and technology pioneers, Peasy. co-cre8 already has deep experience in creating and managing programs to collect and recycle post-consumer materials, whilst Peasy uses innovative technology to boost consumer uptake and is the creator of LitterLotto® 1.

CupLotto® can be played at any participating cup collection unit and is exclusive to members of co-cre8’s paper cup recycling scheme. However, recognising that CupLotto® also presents a unique opportunity to increase overall engagement in collecting cups segregated, CupLotto® will also be available for businesses implementing reusable cup initiatives with supporting co-cre8 cup collection units.

BASIS has provided expert help to sports clubs, venues, and governing bodies for over a decade – helping them to understand their impacts, set targets and implement processes to improve their environmental performance. BASIS’s 12 Principles are a comprehensive framework that guides sports organisations in achieving environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

co-cre8 are renowned as circular economy experts with a true passion for innovation and systemic thinking, with their expertise lying in developing and implementing strategies that enhance resource efficiency and promote responsible consumption. Services provided by co-cre8 and that will support BASIS members include;

1. System Design – designing, implementing and managing collection and recycling programmes for ‘hard-to-recycle’ products, specialising in food and beverage packaging used within the hospitality and foodservice sector
2. Paper Cup Recycling – a layered UK-wide collection service that ensures paper cups are recycled in the most cost effective and operationally efficient manner
3. Waste and Recycling Stations – easy to use and visually impactful recycling stations, all of which are manufactured in the UK (from UK sourced recycled materials where possible) and which are proven to collect targeted materials separately and free from contamination to facilitate onward recycling
4. Circular Products – transforming post-consumer material back into desirable new products that are designed for circularity. In 2022, co-cre8 launched the Honest brand and first product – the Honest Bottle (www.honestbottle.com), the first and only reusable bottle made in the UK from UK sourced recycled material, that can also be easily recycled at end of life.

For more information on BASIS and the 12 Principles visit www.basis.org.uk

Our experience in establishing and operating the Simply Cups cup collection and recycling service – the world’s first –told us that there’s never been a greater need for solutions that turn used packaging products into second life materials. Consumers are demanding it of brand owners who, in turn, are looking for help from their supplier chain. This, together with the newly implemented the pan-EU laws restricting single-use items and ambitious paper and board recycling targets, has escalated the requirement for workable solutions.

Step forward The Cup Collective; a new partnership between Huhtamaki and Stora Enso that aims to recycle and capture the value of used paper cups across Europe on an industrial scale. co-cre8, with its extensive experience in this field, has been tasked to manage the programme. We’ll be working with partners throughout the supply chain, from the largest restaurants and café chains, retailers and transport hubs to independent coffee shops, collection partners, waste management operators and policymakers across Europe to address the challenges to recycling and deliver a viable scalable solution for Europe.

The first paper cup collection bins are now already available in restaurants, cafés, office buildings and transport hubs in the Brussels area. This includes McDonalds restaurants and SNCB train stations. The Cup Collective aims to recycle half a billion paper cups in the first two years and, as it is designed to be scalable, has the capacity to significantly increase recycling volumes throughout Europe. We are already in high-level discussions with a number of other cities across Europe so stay tuned for further updates soon.

For more information visit: thecupcollective.eu

Greene King, the UK’s leading pub company and brewer, is partnering with two specialist recycling businesses to turn hard-to-recycle plastic into much needed cash for Macmillan Cancer Support and is calling on the public to participate.

Consumers and businesses are being encouraged to drop off their used plastic confectionery and biscuit tubs at any of Greene King’s managed pubs, restaurants and hotels across the UK. The tubs will be taken to a specialist recycling facility and processed into granulated recycled plastic. Each tub equates to approximately eight pence and money is raised by selling the recycled plastics, with the profit going to Greene King’s charity partner, Macmillan Cancer Support.

Greene King is partnering with co-cre8; specialists in creating solutions for hard-to-recycle materials and responsible for attracting large businesses to support the campaign and DCW Polymers, which will use its high-tech plastic reprocessing plant to shred and granulate the tubs ready for sale to manufacturers, in place of virgin plastic.

Vance Fairman-Smith, Greene King’s supply chain director, said: “Earlier this year, we announced we were the first pub company to achieve the Carbon Trust’s Zero Waste to Landfill Standard, and we’re continually looking at how we can tackle waste and help the environment through recycling. We’re really excited to be able to offer this recycling facility to our customers but also to support Macmillan, which needs help more than ever following the huge gap in donations following the Covid 19 crisis.”

“This is a great way of not just helping charity but also the environment”, says Peter Goodwin, co-cre8’s Co-founder.

“DCW Polymers successfully tested this scheme last year in Devon, with more than £1,200 raised for charity. Such was the appetite, we are now ready to take it nationwide and, together with the backing of Greene King, we hope turn it into an annual post-Christmas event”, added Peter.

It is estimated that well over 100 million tubs of chocolates, sweets and biscuits are sold in the UK each year; with Christmas accounting for as much as forty per cent of all sales. These tubs are typically made from polypropylene; a hard plastic that is not always accepted by local authorities for recycling, resulting in it, instead, being incinerated or landfilled.

Greene King will be accepting tubs between the 1 and 31 of January 2021. Since many areas of the UK are now subject to restrictions, customers can check the ‘PubHub’ guide to find out if their local Green King pub is open for business by visiting https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs-near-me. To check whether your tubs are suitable for participating in the scheme look for the symbol, below, stamped into the outside base of the tub.