Moving materials up the waste hierarchy at Betty and Taylors in Yorkshire

The Bettys and Taylors Group was first established in 1919 with the opening of a tea room in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Almost a century on, their business has expanded to now include six tea rooms across Yorkshire and a head office which encompasses a cookery school, bakery, manufacturing facility and online store.

Plumpton Park consists of the head offices, tea and coffee manufacturing site, craft bakery and cookery school producing a broad range of waste streams.

The site produces a number of streams, equating to annually approximately 365 tonnes of waste; including hazardous, such as colourings and chemicals and non-hazardous waste.

The Bettys and Taylors Group are actively aware of environmental issues and have bold green targets requiring alternate routes for waste to attain targets such as zero-waste-to-landfill and increased recycling.

These objectives are in spite of limited space availability for waste storage and a large number of complex streams.

As a result of the experience and best practice sharing of the account manager with their team about other manufacturing sites both nationally and in the local area, SUEZ has implemented a number of changes at Bettys and Taylors site.

Subsequently, all recyclable streams have been consolidated and are now collected in one trailer which is housed at Plumpton Park. This has provided vital space saving in a congested area of the site, a time saving as collections are now only conducted when necessary offering the added benefit of emission reduction.

Through employing an honest and open-book policy with Bettys and Taylors and by working closely with the new subcontractor SUEZ introduced to site, a number of waste streams have been diverted to different routes, increasing rebates awarded. This includes tea sacks, which consist of bonded layers of paper to an aluminium liner. Previously, they were sent for incineration as energy from waste, but after SUEZ's introduction onto site, a small proportion are sent for recycling into catalogues. The majority however are now recycled with an innovative process separating the paper and aluminium, allowing these two streams to be recovered and traded.

Alongside these actions, to increase staff recycling engagement, the SUEZ account management team hosted a waste education day on site. This was done to coincide to with the deployment of new bins and signage across site to ensure consistent waste segregation and educating staff about the cradle-to-grave outlets for what they are disposing of.

Market and technology awareness has allowed items to move up the waste hierarchy and away from general waste, allowing the site to reach a number of its waste targets. Furthermore, the transfer of items to local stations for sorting and processing has reduced transportation emissions.

As a result of the steps taken, Bettys and Taylors have agreed a further year extension to continue the on-going work.