John Lewis to send all of its plastics to Liverpool’s Centriforce for recycling

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Plastic waste from John Lewis and Waitrose stores is to undergo a closed loop recycling system at Centriforce’s recycling facility in Liverpool.

The company has won the contract with the John Lewis Partnership as part of the retailer’s strategy to streamline its waste contractors and keep responsibility for its waste flows to ensure as much is recycled as possible.

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John Lewis Partnership is also exploring the possibility of reusing Centriforce products such as plastic planks, boards and sheeting in its new store construction programme to achieve closed loop recycling.

Centriforce will collect more than 3,000 tonnes of plastics waste from John Lewis and Waitrose distribution centres across the UK annually.

John Lewis Partnership recycling and waste operations manager Mike Walters said: “We want to be completely transparent in our approach to waste management and ensure that as much as possible is recycled and then reused in our own business.

“We are committed to keeping ownership of our waste all the way to its final destination, rather than selling it to the highest bidder, or losing control over what happens to it.

“We are working with Centriforce’s innovations team to explore ways in which we can reuse more recycled plastic products in our stores in future, especially for new store construction. We already have recycled plastic furniture made by Centriforce outside most of our Waitrose and John Lewis stores. Centriforce planks and posts were also used recently in an employee-led project to build a boardwalk through historic woodland close to our Bracknell headquarters.

“We have had a policy of backhauling our waste through the space available in empty vehicles for a number of years. It provides the perfect starting point for recycling. We have declared our aspiration to achieve zero waste to landfill with a diversion target of 95 per cent by the end of 2013. Plastics waste plays an important role in that, but even more exciting is the possibility that it can be recycled into products we can use again.”

Centriforce has been working with John Lewis Partnership for five years and will collect all soft plastics from its stores that will be processed on its new mixed plastics sorting line.