4 August 2015
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Over the past month I have been actively updating our social media accounts (hopefully you have noticed?!), and in doing this I’ve seen that there are a lot of newsworthy stories about recycling and worldwide efforts to help the environment. Therefore I have decided to take a look back and show a brief summary of some large companies and their eco-friendly efforts throughout July.
Adidas Creates Prototype Shoes From Recycled Ocean Waste
At the start of the month, sportswear giant Adidas took helping the environment further than just recycling old shoeboxes. They launched a prototype shoe which features an upper created entirely out of reclaimed ocean waste consisting of yarns and filaments. The shoe was created as part of their partnership with Parley for the Oceans – an initiative that encourages creatives to re-purpose ocean waste and raise awareness of the growing environmental issue.
Although Adidas haven’t announced when, they have stated that the shoes will eventually be available to customers, along with an additional range of products that utilise recycled material pulled from the ocean – an ongoing partnership with Parley for the Oceans.
The Trafford Centre Takes a 'Canny' Approach To Recycling
The Trafford Centre in Manchester teamed up with Every Can Counts as they aim to encourage 31 million customers to recycle their drink cans and conserve valuable energy. These efforts came after recent research showed that 49% of shoppers never use the shopping centre's recycling facilities.
They are aiming to save one million cans from being dumped into landfill sites every year. They have added 250 recycling bins to their shopping centre to try to achieve this. The energy saved from that many recycled cans could power a fridge or computer for over 100 years!
Argos Launches Electronic Waste-Tackling Scheme
Argos joined up with WRAP, the “circular economy” firm and have become the first big UK retailer to offer customers the chance to trade-in unwanted mobile handsets or tablets in exchange for store vouchers.
UK households are estimated to have around £1bn worth of electrical and electronic equipment in their homes which are no longer used. The unwanted products are checked against a lost and stolen database, then they are either refurbed or repaired for further use or broken down so the parts can be recycled. Argos and WRAP claim this will reduce the volume of electrical items send to landfills.
McVities Recycling Scheme Success
In June 2012, United Biscuits (manufacturer of McVitie’s) teamed up with recycling experts TerraCycle UK for their McVitie’s ‘Biscuit Wrapper Brigade’ scheme. They developed the industry’s first recycling fundraising scheme that gives customers the incentives to save waste biscuit wrappers from landfill, so they can be recycled in return for raising money for the charity of their choice. This was a wise move as UK councils don’t have the infrastructure to recycle this type of waste packaging.
As it stands today, £36,847.71 has been raised for a variety of charities, schools and non-profit organisations and 1 million wrappers have been recycled. For each biscuit wrapper returned, that equalled 1% contribution to a non-profitable organisation. The process to return the wrappers via post is completely free and the wrappers are then converted into products such as plastic lumber and pavers, to tote bags and pencil cases. 
