Closing the loop in London

Recycling is broken.

Plastic production has increased twenty-fold since 1964, yet just 5% of plastics are recycled effectively. A recent investigation by Greenpeace revealed that the UK is the 2nd biggest producer of plastic waste per person in the world. 

Nearly 70% of this plastic waste is packaging. * Over 2 million tonnes of plastic packaging is used each year in the UK.  

We need new solutions to sort our plastic packaging waste, and decent packaging and First Mile believe that it starts with collaboration. Plant-based packaging can integrate into the organic waste system and be utilised as compost for the next generation of plants. Composting packaging, along with food waste, is an idea that has a real opportunity to divert organic materials away from landfill. 

First Mile and decent Packaging are implementing such a method for central London hospitality. While many cafes and restaurants around London provide compostable packaging and create food waste, an important piece of the puzzle was missing, capturing those compostable materials when it’s taken away from the venue?  

The Full Package aims to address this problem. Because fundamentally everyone wants to do the right thing and customers are expecting all businesses to do their part in implementing sustainable solutions and reducing waste going to landfill.  

First Mile and decent packaging have launched The Full Package, the first city-wide compost collection of its kind in central London. Teaming up with cafes and restaurants across the city to produce the first public facing compost collection. The objective is to help decent packaging customers and the public divert more of their takeaway compostable packaging and food waste away from landfill. Not only showcasing that zero waste solutions do exist, but they’re easy to implement with the right collaboration.

Full Package collection bins are being  placed out the front of cafe and restaurant sites, enabling anyone who has compostable packaging or food waste a place where they can dispose of it and trust it is being composted. For cafes and restaurants, it’s simple, they clear the public facing compostable packaging bin when it fills up and put it out for First Mile to collect. This bin is picked up on a regular basis from First Mile and delivered to Severn Trent, who is diverting over 120,000 tonnes of organic waste from landfill a year. 

After going through an autoclave at high pressure with temperatures that exceed 160 degrees, the finished product is nutrient–rich compost and organic fertilisers which are used by farmers, gardeners and local communities, closing the loop on this waste stream. 

For this to work, we need complete collaboration between all parties involved. Any participating café will need to accept compostable packaging that may have come from another café, coffee roaster or supplier. We want these bins to be on every street corner and we want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to correctly dispose of their packaging waste.

Want to get the Full Package solution for your café or restaurant, click the button below for all the information. 

*source: wrap.org.uk