A responsible retailer reusing and recycling

Wetherspoon is committed to protecting the environment, regarding recycling and sustainability, with numerous company policies and procedures in place.

As a responsible retailer, the company takes its corporate and social responsibility very seriously and is doing everything possible to minimise environmental impact and protect the planet.

Much of Wetherspoon’s waste management is achieved in house, via the company’s national distribution centre and its own fleet of vehicles; however, glass, food waste and general waste are collected from the pubs directly by Veolia.

Wetherspoon’s partnership with Veolia began in 2018, when food waste-recycling was introduced across the estate, helping to boost the recycling rate by 20 per cent.

Veolia, the UK’s leading resource company, helps to turn recyclable materials into new products and divert waste away from landfill by transforming it, instead, into energy.

This is achieved at an energy-recovery facility where non-recyclable waste is incinerated, for the purposes of energy capture, at around 850°C and above.

The incineration process superheats a boiler, which produces steam which then drives a turbine, producing electricity for power and hot water for local district heating networks.

These facilities can supply whole communities with heating and energy, contributing to a reduction in the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels.

While Wetherspoon is aiming to waste as little as possible, the company is also proud to work with Veolia to regenerate resources for the benefit of local communities where Wetherspoon’s pubs are located.

We should be wasting only those items which we really can’t eat, such as coffee grounds, eggs shells and any leftover plate-scrapings.

Thanks to a process called anaerobic digestion, this organic matter can be broken down into new resources.

The food waste is sealed in closed tanks, called digesters, where microorganisms digest the organic fraction of the waste and convert it into biogas – a source of renewable energy.

What remains after this process is a high-quality, nutrient-rich fertiliser which can replace environmentally harmful synthetic fertilisers in farming – to grow new crops.

Using this by-product is not only better for the soil’s health, but reduces the carbon emissions of the energy-intensive synthetic fertiliser production process.

Through Veolia’s regular site visits and continual improvement interactions and engagement with Wetherspoon’s teams across the land, almost 10,000 tonnes of food waste was recycled in one year (January – December 2024).

In that same period, glass-recycling processes have saved more than 21,500 tonnes of glass. This was recycled into new glass products, such as bottles and even fibreglass insulation to keep homes warm.

Wetherspoon’s senior facilities manager, Mark Miller, said: “Wetherspoon aims to minimise waste and maximise recycling, across the entire business, with a company recycling target of 90 per cent of all waste.

“We are on our way to achieving this with our hard-working in-house teams, as well as through partnerships with companies such as Veolia.”