“Our growing partnership with Simply Cups, and the heightened media
Justin Salmon – Business Development Manager for Leafield Environmentalinterest, has played a significant part in building interest and enquiries this year. This, together with the impressive growth in sales, will mean that we will be working ever more closely with Simply Cups in the future”.
Company background
Leafield Environmental manufactures premium plastic litter and recycling bins, agricultural products and highways street furniture using rotational moulding, a fast and efficient method which produces consistent high quality, hard-wearing and stress-free products. Located in Corsham, Wiltshire the company employs 60 full time equivalent staff. Annual revenues are approximately £6 million.
Customers span many sectors including commercial companies, schools, universities, entertainment venues, shopping centres and public sector institutions.
Issues
Historically, cup bins were just a small part of the overall Leafield range, mainly due to the fact that there were no recycling schemes in place. So whilst cup bins represented the best way for customers to be able to collect used cups, so stopping them from quickly filling general waste bins, the cups still would have ended up being landfilled or incinerated.
Therefore, demand for these types of bins was relatively low but as the issue of cup recycling was beginning to break, Leafield believed that there was a huge opportunity to capitalise on the demand once a solution had been found to recycle post-consumer cups.
Solution
In 2014, the Simply Cups scheme was established with the aim of tackling the 5 million+ paper cups used in the UK each year. The scheme understood that the issue of cup recycling could not be tackled by one organisation alone and, therefore, collaboration was required across the supply chain if it was to succeed in its objectives.
Segregating material at source is a critical part of any effective recycling scheme, and so Simply Cups knew they needed the support of the UK’s leading bin manufacturers. This was welcome news to Leafield Environmental who joined the scheme, from launch, in August 2014 and who was already benefitting from growing interest in cup recycling.
Over the last two years, Simply Cups has made huge strides in bringing to the attention of businesses, the public and the media the collective failure in tackling the UK’s fastest growing waste stream. It has also successfully brought on board a growing number of high-profile brands and companies, and is now the leading voice in cup recycling.
This opened new channels of dialogue for Leafield Environmental and the demand for its bins has never been higher.
“Previously, we found it very difficult to sell cup bins because there was no recycling service in place. We knew though that our customers genuinely wanted to recycle their cups because it improves their recycling targets, avoids waste going to landfill and enhances their environmental credentials. Now that there is a robust scheme in operation, through Simply Cups, there is a huge incentive for them to recycle their cups, which gives us the opportunity to help them find the best bin for their needs”.
Justin Salmon – Business Development Manager for Leafield Environmental