JD Wetherspoon PLC has today (1 May) announced it has teamed up with waste management company Veolia, which will be responsible for the management of general waste, food waste and glass recycling, in order for the pub chain to reach its 100 per cent landfill diversion target by 2018.

The new recycling scheme – covering the company’s more than 900 pubs, hotels and bars – will reportedly divert 11,500 tonnes of food waste from landfill and provide 3,450 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy a year. Additionally, while ten per cent of the UK’s waste is exported to the EU and Asia for processing, all Wetherspoon waste handled by Veolia will be managed within the UK, further reducing the chain’s carbon footprint.

Food waste is a persistent problem in the UK, with 10 million tonnes of food wasted in the country every year, according to the latest figures from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), and approximately 17 per cent of this is produced by the hospitality and food service industry.

Commenting on the partnership, Estelle Brachlianoff, Senior Executive Vice-President of Veolia UK & Ireland, said: “It is vital we treat unavoidable food waste sustainably and recognise both the environmental and economic benefits that can be produced by converting it into ‘green energy’ as part of a wider recycling scheme. As one of the most well-known names on the high street, we’re proud to be working with the team at JD Wetherspoon and supporting them in achieving their goals of zero waste to landfill and protecting the environment by taking care of their recycling and general waste sustainably.”

Wetherspoon’s Contractor Performance Manager, David Willis, said: “Wetherspoon is committed to leading the hospitality industry into a sustainable future. In line with our work with the Sustainable Restaurants’ Association, we take very seriously our commitment to minimise waste and opting for recycling wherever possible. We are pleased to highlight our commitment to a genuinely sustainable future by entering into partnership with Veolia UK for the management of our general waste, food waste and glass recycling.

“We are proud to announce our goal of zero waste being sent to landfill by the end of 2018, a target that we are well on the way to achieving. In addition, we are also continuing to innovate in partnership with Veolia UK to enable wider use of our recyclable products, increasing the amount of sundry items that are manufactured from recycled products such as drinks trays or garden furniture.”

The partnership also means that Wetherspoon will have the option to utilise Veolia’s data insight to drive resource efficiencies, including:

• Individual recycling and waste collection data, for site specific recycling and diversion performance monitoring;
• On-board computers and handheld devices that deliver ad-hoc collection tasks to teams in the local area;
• Route optimisation tools to ensure the associated carbon footprint of vehicles is constantly monitored and improved; and
• A 24/7 customer hub, enabling access to performance monitoring, so customers can take control of data and analysis.

The partnership between Wetherspoon and Veolia is a further step forward in Wetherspoon’s attempts to project a greener and more sustainable image following their promise in 2017 to stop using plastic straws amid more widespread understanding of the product’s damaging effects brought about by David Attenborough’s latest BBC series, Blue Planet II.

Furthermore, the collaboration continues a trend that has seen more attention is being afforded to restaurant waste, with behaviour change specialist Hubbub forming a new partnership with Compass Group UK & Ireland and commercial kitchen food waste app Winnow just last week to explore ways of reducing the amount of food thrown away in corporate and university restaurants.