Growing responsibly

Recycling and waste management

Reynolds takes its responsibility to the environment very seriously. Our Environmental Management System is certified against British Standard BS8555 and we hold the Environmental Management System standard ISO 14001.

Reynolds was one of the founding members of the Hospitality and Food Service Agreement on waste reduction, working alongside many of its customers with the common aim of minimising waste food, packaging and carbon emissions.

WRAP logoThe sector wide UK voluntary agreement was launched by WRAP, on behalf of UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland governments. The agreement aims to cut food and associated packaging waste by 5% (a CO2e reduction of 234,000 tonnes), the equivalent of approximately 100 million meals. It also aims to increase the overall rate of food and packaging waste that is being recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion or composted to 70% (a CO2e reduction of 336,000 tonnes).

Read more about our work with WRAP.

Reynolds’ Technical Director, Ian Booth, regularly speaks with authority about Reynolds’ focus on waste including at the recent European waste conference, ‘No Opportunities Wasted’. Ian also lends his expertise to talk with industry students.

recycled cardboardReynolds has undertaken an assessment of its carbon footprint to the Carbon Trust standard which has been externally verified by Trucost. Our efforts to reduce the environmental impact of our work include:

  • Training and briefing staff on the importance of waste management, which resulted in the recycling of 630 tonnes of cardboard in 2009 and 705 tonnes in 2010, an increase of 11%.
  • Increased focus within our storage facility and offices on energy usage, including posters and training sessions.
  • Our reusable crate scheme has a positive impact on resources”carbon by taking away the need for cardboard packaging. An increasing amount of our customers are taking advantage of the environmental benefits it offers.
  • Reynolds currently has 24 recycling waste streams in place
  • Reynolds is working with Fareshare, an organisation set up to provide waste food to various charities across the UK.