Case Study - United Biscuits
Silver Award Winner of 2011 Community Partnership Awards: Environmental business
Achieving zero waste to landfill
In 2006 United Biscuits (UB) was sending around 9000 tonnes
of non food rubbish to holes in the ground.
By the start of 2011
it had reduced its waste to landfill by 83% and four sites had
met the target of zero waste to landfi ll by 2012. A further five
sites achieved zero landfill status by mid 2011.
This ambitious transformation started with an analysis of the
factory lorry contents sent to landfill. Around a third of waste
could be put into existing recycling systems, a third such as
excess packaging could have been avoided and only one third
was genuinely appropriate for landfill.
Since then, UB has worked to create new recycling initiatives
within the business including collection points for batteries and
a project to collect and donate old safety shoes to the third
world. Employee engagement has been critical and around 100
of the adopted new initiatives were put forward by staff.
The company also took decisive action on avoidable waste and
worked with suppliers to minimise packaging and introduce reusable containers.
In most cases inbound packaging was reduced or eliminated altogether and the
work
proved so
successful that some UB suppliers replicated the process
with their own suppliers to make the effects as far reaching
as possible.
More Information
View all the winning Community Partnership Awards case studies (2011)