Prowrap sends zero waste to landfill

In the space of four years, Prowrap achieved an ambitious target: to ensure no waste produced by the company ended up in the ground. This #ZeroWasteWeek, we’re finding out how.

Here at Prowrap, our mantra is that sustainability is not only a priority – it’s a necessity. As such, the business’s Green Team, established in 2020, set a series of aspirational targets that aimed to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and allow it to develop sustainably. Among the loftier ambitions outlined by the Green Team was to ensure none of the waste it produced ended up in landfill downstream in its value chain.

It’s difficult to overstate the environmental impacts caused by landfill. Aside from the blight to a landscape and the potential for toxic fumes, sending waste to landfill causes exponentially higher CO₂ emissions compared to other waste management methods. According to the most recent UK government figures, a tonne of typical waste sent to landfill produces almost 100 times more emissions than disposing of it through any other method.

The manufacturing industry has always produced large amounts of waste – it comes with the territory – and Prowrap are a leading manufacturer of cling film, foil, baking parchment and wrapping dispensers. Nevertheless, in 2024, the business achieved its aim of sending none of its waste to landfill – guaranteed.

How was this possible? A mixture of ingenuity, dedication and like-minded partners throughout its value chain.

REFUSE.

In keeping with our theme for this year’s Zero Waste Week, we refuse to generate unnecessary waste. 

We’ve removed the plastic adapter inserts on all of our Speedwrap Pro refill rolls, rejecting single-use plastic and ensuring that all of our refill rolls are now plastic-free and fully recyclable at end of use. This is projected to save 15.3 tonnes of CO₂ from being produced every year.

REUSE.

Another vital aspect of our waste strategy is to reuse as many of our products and components as possible. With this ideal in mind, we designed our game-changing Dispenser Recycling Scheme.

A first for the wrapping industry, Prowrap’s Dispenser Recycling Scheme allows any distributor or customer on the British mainland to recycle any dispenser – not only our own Speedwrap Pro brand. The response from our distributors and customers has been fantastic; we recently recycled 250 dispensers from one customer alone! We’ve since been recognised at the Baking Industry Awards and the Foodservice Packaging Awards for prompting a step change in the wrapping industry.

RECYCLE.

Beyond our flagship sustainability programmes, we also recognised that meaningful change happens at home. Within our production warehouses, we saw the potential to implement continuous improvement measures that could help to ensure all recyclable waste avoided the dreaded tip.

A joint consultation between the Green Team and our dedicated production staff identified several areas of improvement. Putting these improvements into place required both innovation and collaboration: our warehouse staff delivered with a number of adjustments to their work processes, and we identified several external suppliers who care about sustainability as much as we do.

Steel cores are now separated and collected in dedicated bins, which are collected by our metals recycling partner. These cores are segregated and then sold on to various refiners to be reused in a variety of metal products.

Any silver foil which doesn’t make it into one of our products is collected in several compartments, depending on whether it’s attached to a core or whether it’s loose. Foil on cores is collected directly by another local metals recycling expert, while our loose foil is compressed into bales before being recycled.

Plastic waste is sorted into types, including PVC and PE, before being collected by two of our recycling partners. Under the watchful eye of our plastics recycling specialist, our PE waste is sorted into pallets which produce refuse sacks or pallet wrap. Meanwhile, our PVC waste is crumbed and put through a calendar process, which allows it to be melded with other PVC waste to form a sort sheet. This is then bonded to a kind of felt which absorbs sound – the finished product is used in the automotive industry and to produce slipper soles.

The rest of our waste is more traditional and is processed by a leading waste management organisation in the local region, which guarantees no waste will be sent to landfill.

RETHINK.

With that final piece of the puzzle, Prowrap were able to ensure that precisely none of the waste it produces ends up in landfill, either in the UK or abroad. Over the years, each small change added up, each playing its part to help Prowrap achieve Zero Waste to Landfill.

Another part of our mission to #RethinkWrapping.