Global Recycling Day
To mark Global Recycling Day on the 18th March, we thought it’s a good time to share some insights into recycling at Pb. With Global Recycling Day estimating that recycling saves 700 million tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions, recycling has an important role in limiting the impact of climate change.
So, what’s happening with recycling at Pb? We’re on a roll! By switching the carpet we use for stages and exhibition booths to Rewind Carpet, we’ve adopted a more circular approach to our carpet use. As new orders are delivered, our supplier collects used carpet which is taken away for recycling into premium polypropylene pellets ready to be manufactured into new products. The UK events industry uses millions of square metres of carpet each year! Historically this was destined for landfill or incineration after the event.
Like many within our industry, foamboard was our go to solution for printed graphics. Made from PVC and not recyclable once printed, we decided to look for a more sustainable approach. This resulted in our Sustainability team deciding that we should eradicate foamboard use, switching to using Xanita which is made from recycled cardboard and can be recycled post use.
With representatives from across the business, our Sustainability team are always on the lookout for innovative products that enable us to use our spending power responsibly. For recycling to be effective, there needs to be a market for those recycled materials and the products produced from them. We’ve been longstanding users of recycled paper in our offices, and we’ve seen the introduction of other items, such as paint rollers which have heads and handles made from recycled material or recycled plastic sheeting being transformed into furniture items for exhibition booths.
Our Technical Services department have a dedicated waste electronics bin, providing a segregated collection point for redundant equipment to be recycled. Radio microphones and other battery powered AV and IT equipment mean that used batteries feature in our waste stream. Early adopters of battery recycling, we’ve had collection points and processes in place to ensure batteries make it back from event sites to be recycled for a number of years. However, knowing that some of these batteries are only part used, we now have battery testers at our collection point and encourage employees to make use of these batteries as long as they commit to returning them for recycling after use.
Like most businesses, we hope, our office waste is segregated and we have mixed recycling waste collections. Last year we introduced film packaging bins in our offices which volunteers take to the local supermarket for recycling. It might not seem like a major step but, like us, you are probably underestimating just how many packets of crisps our teams eat!
Our Sustainability team have a focus group dedicated to the topic of waste at Pb. Whilst this may not seem like an exciting subject, this team see real opportunities for us to flex our creativity in approaches to design, fabrication and material use. Beyond recycling, this team are looking at ways to avoid or reduce waste, increase re-use and divert items from waste. We already have some great examples of these approaches but today recycling takes centre stage.
The theme for Global Recycling Day this year is #RecyclingHeroes, we’ll leave it to you to decide if you think our efforts qualify us as an organisation. With our Sustainability team, the volunteers going that extra step to boost recycling, and the wider team all playing their part, we’re certain we’ve got a number of #RecyclingHeroes in the business. We’re proud of them.
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