M&S to Recycle All Food Waste as Part of Zero-Waste Goal
The U.K.-based retailer reportedly signed a new business contract that will turn all food waste from its operations into compost or energy.
Marks & Spencer is making haste toward its zero-waste-to-landfill goal with a new business contract that will turn all food waste from its operations into compost or energy.
That includes ordinary food waste and past-due food, the British press reports. Shanks, Europe’s largest waste management company, won the three-year contract in partnership with Severnside Recycling.
Shanks also handles all food waste of Albert Heijn, the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain.
Marks & Spencer’s stores, offices and warehouses in the U.K. and Ireland produce about 100,000 tonnes of waste every year, about 45 percent of which is recycled, according to its company website.
By 2012, however, Marks & Spencer wants to send no waste to landfills. For more than a year, the company has conducted a successful pilot program recycling food waste at its Crewe warehouse, it said in its waste progress report.
The company is also looking at its waste beyond its own operations. Marks & Spencer, for instance, launched a shopping bag program that cut bag use 80 percent. It also joins other retailers participating in a program rewarding consumers for recycling in Windsor and Maidenhead, according to the Telegraph. People with microchips installed in their garbage bins can earn vouchers based on the amount of waste they recycle.
The zero-waste goal is part of Plan A, the retailer’s five-year 100-point plan that aims to make the company carbon neutral by 2012. It involves reducing energy consumption 25 percent per square foot of store floor space, making offices and warehouses 20 percent more energy and fuel efficient, cutting business travel, buying 100 percent green power to satisfy its energy needs, and sourcing local products, among other initiatives.
That includes ordinary food waste and past-due food, the British press reports. Shanks, Europe’s largest waste management company, won the three-year contract in partnership with Severnside Recycling.
Shanks also handles all food waste of Albert Heijn, the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain.
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Marks & Spencer’s stores, offices and warehouses in the U.K. and Ireland produce about 100,000 tonnes of waste every year, about 45 percent of which is recycled, according to its company website.
By 2012, however, Marks & Spencer wants to send no waste to landfills. For more than a year, the company has conducted a successful pilot program recycling food waste at its Crewe warehouse, it said in its waste progress report.
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The company is also looking at its waste beyond its own operations. Marks & Spencer, for instance, launched a shopping bag program that cut bag use 80 percent. It also joins other retailers participating in a program rewarding consumers for recycling in Windsor and Maidenhead, according to the Telegraph. People with microchips installed in their garbage bins can earn vouchers based on the amount of waste they recycle.
The zero-waste goal is part of Plan A, the retailer’s five-year 100-point plan that aims to make the company carbon neutral by 2012. It involves reducing energy consumption 25 percent per square foot of store floor space, making offices and warehouses 20 percent more energy and fuel efficient, cutting business travel, buying 100 percent green power to satisfy its energy needs, and sourcing local products, among other initiatives.
