This week is one of our favourites on the calendar – Recycling Week!
The flagship campaign from Recycle Now aims to galvanise businesses, organisations and public bodies to increase awareness on the importance of recycling and how to recycle more of the right things… more often!
This year, we want to help inspire businesses from across the South West on how to get recycling into the heart of their operations. And instead of some ‘top tips’, we thought we’d show you what some the region’s most popular businesses are up to!
Like their ideas? Then absolutely feel free to steal (or shall we say, recycle?) them.
Let’s dive in.
Exeter Chiefs’ dedicated recycling stations
Build it, and they will come (and recycle it for themselves).
That’s the approach we took with Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park.
As part of our push to make the facility cleaner and greener, we introduced clearly-marked recycling stations around the stadium at high footfall areas such as food stalls and bar zones, alongside other new waste segregation initiatives, including diverting food waste to support renewable energy generation at a local farm.
And supporters really stepped up too. General waste from one year to the next was cut by over 25%, with recycling being boosted by 5%.
Action for your business: Introduce clear recycling stations around high footfall areas to encourage self-sorting of waste.
Dart Music Festival leaves no trash unsorted
We are proud to continue strengthening our partnership with Dart Music Festival and our joint push to make the event a real positive example of how large-scale events can efficiently manage their waste in an environmentally-friendly way.
This year, as the music festival’s Diamond Sponsor, we continued to work closely with event organisers to ensure that ALL festival waste was collected and sorted in Devon to ensure that everything that could be recycled was recycled.
Chair of DMF, Simon Green, said of our partnership: “We work closely with the fantastic team at DCW to ensure that our audiences have plenty of opportunities to dispose of their waste responsibly, that our town is left spick and span after the weekend and most importantly, that nothing goes to landfill.
“Big thanks to our committee members who regularly pick litter over the weekend and again to DCW, who have generously donated new equipment for the task this year.”
Action for your business: Choose a waste management partner with a zero-to-landfill policy so all waste is sorted.
Torquay United’s commitment to sustainability is built into their approach
Torquay United have made a commitment to sustainability at Plainmoor with a core focus on increasing recycling levels, reducing the club’s footprint and delivering a cleaner, more sustainable environment for fans, players and staff.
DCW’s comprehensive waste management strategy for the club ensures that stadium waste is collected, sorted and managed efficiently with a core focus on increasing recycling rates.
We’re delighted to be partnering the football club again this season. The sponsorship is part of our wider strategy to partner with local organisations that do prioritise sustainability and community development – helping to look after our environment in a responsible way.
Action for your business: Partner with organisations with a commitment to the environment.
Promoting sustainability’s future champions with Young Enterprise
The future breakthrough ideas in business sustainability are likely to come from the generations that will be impacted by our changing climate the most – and we’re supporting them to bring about that transformative change.
We were delighted to sponsor this year’s Sustainability Award for Young Enterprise, which recognises and supports innovative young entrepreneurs who are making a positive impact on the environment through sustainable business practices.
Projects were rewarded that demonstrated creativity, environmental stewardship, and a commitment to social responsibility.
Our General Manager, Grant Scott, commented on the sponsorship that ‘we hope to inspire these young entrepreneurs to consider how they can reduce the impact their product or services have on the environment’.
When we invest in young entrepreneurs, we’re inspiring a culture of sustainability that can influence communities and industries locally and further afield.
Action for your business: Support local initiatives which champion the environmental successes of other businesses.
Dartmoor Zoo and the circular economy
Their resident tiger, Dragon, is having barrels of laughs thanks to a partnership we set up with a local food producer.
Through DCW’s curricular economy partnership, disused plastic barrels from Olives Et Al that would normally be chipped down or recycled have instead been diverted to enrich his habitat.
The ‘Toys for Tigers’ initiative is part of a wider partnership between DCW and Dartmoor Zoo to keep materials in use for longer, support animal welfare, and really highlight just how impactful and creative the circular economy can be.
We were the first company to introduce an opt-in scheme of this nature over half a decade ago now, and your business can get involved too. Find out more here.
Action for your business: Look for novel opportunities to reuse materials within the circular economy.