J&B News & Updates

20.10.22 | Business News

J&B Recycling have opened the doors of our Materials Processing Facility (MRF) in Hartlepool as part of our Recycle Week 2022 campaign.

Now in its 19th year, Recycle Week is Recycle Now’s flagship annual event. A celebration of recycling across the UK, galvanising the public into recycling more of the right things, more often.

To mark the occasion and help challenge perceptions and myths around recycling, J&B Recycling invited local businesses and clients from across the North East to visit our MRF in Hartlepool to see for themselves how the recycling process works.

The Week commenced with a visit from Chey Garland CBE and her team from Magnetic North.

Magnetic North are J&B Recycling's energy provider. Their industry experts have worked with the team at J&B to develop a bespoke green energy strategy, which includes sourcing 100% renewable energy to implementing green employee initiatives. We are now looking to work together to progress our journey to net zero and help evidence our commitment to climate change.

The team were surprised at the scale and complexity of the operation at our Hartlepool MRF. As with most of our visitors throughout Recycle Week, they also found that there are a few things they put in their recycling bin at home that shouldn't be there. Hopefully they will go out and spread the word to friends and family about what can and can't be recycled 🙂

Our second group of visitors for the week were the waste management team from Hartlepool Borough Council.

It was a really productive visit. The team were able to see the level of contamination we deal with on a daily basis when processing recycling waste collected from across the North East. There is still lots of work to do in our local community to change recycling behaviours and we look forward to working together with our local authority partners to do this.

Graeme Cochrane, Director of GLC Projects and his teammate Luke were next to visit. GLC Projects provide demolition and asbestos removal services across the North East and are based just down the road from our Hartlepool MRF.

It is safe to say that like all of our other visitors they were surprised by the complexity of the process. Graeme who has two young daughters, was particularly impressed with number of women working in typically male roles across the businesses - something we are really proud of here at J&B.

Noella Willis from Planning House was next to visit the MRF. Planning House have helped us secure planning permission for a number of our sites across the North East so it was great for Noella to gain a better understanding about our operations.

Noella was so inspired by the experience that she wrote a blog about it on the Planning House website >> read it here.

We weren't sure there could be a more enthusiastic visitor than Noella, but then Caroline and Leanne from Queensway Dental Clinic arrived!! They had an excellent knowledge of what can and can't be recycled, though they were surprised at how differently their recycling waste is collected by their local authorities.

It was a real pleasure to meet a business that is so invested in the sustainability of their activities! They clearly give a lot of thought to their existing practices and we look forward to working closely with them in the future to support their recycling goals ♻️

The team from GE Renewable Energy were next to visit our MRF. GE Renewable Energy are about to embark on the worlds largest offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank! Located more than 130km off the #NorthEast coast of England, Dogger Bank Wind Farm will be capable of powering 6 million British homes.

J&B Recycling are very excited to have been chosen to provide recycling services for the project at Dogger Bank, especially as the construction site is only 3 miles away from our MRF in Hartlepool. We look forward to sharing more information about this exciting project very soon!

Our penultimate visitors of the week were Jo and Grace from Wander Films! Wander Films have been making waves in the Teesside Area with their 'epic' video content and enthusiastic approach to marketing and social media.

Since moving to their amazing new office (AKA #Wanderland) J&B have been managing their office recycling waste, so it was a real pleasure to invite the team along to find out more about the recycling process! Jo and Grace, who live in different areas, were surprised how differently local authorities operate when it comes to recycling and waste management. They were also shocked at the amount of misleading labelling and greenwashing that is commonplace with packaging.

Last, but certainly not least, we welcomed two glamorous ladies for a tour of the MRF. Gemma Holmes from Cornerstone Business Solutions and Sarah Gray from Pepperells Solicitors in Newcastle.

J&B Recycling have been working with Cornerstone Business Solutions for the last 6-months as they manage our advertising at Teesside International Airport. We recently met Sarah from Pepperells Newcastle through a fundraising event that we sponsored at the Hilton in Gateshead to raise money for Alzheimer's Research UK. As both ladies are very well networked we thought it would be great to get them along during Recycle Week so that they can help us shout out about good recycling practices to their extensive networks... go talk rubbish ladies 😉

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to get involved in our Recycle Week 2022 campaign and spread the word about recycling! We have certainly had lots of fun and loved hosting so many enthusiastic recyclers during the week ♻️

The tours highlights that there are clearly still lots of messages we need to get across about what you can and can not recycle in your kerbside recycling. Everyone who took part in the tours were diligent about their recycling practices, yet across the board there were things they put in their kerbside recycling bin that they shouldn't. In most cases this is down to poor / misleading labelling.

If you are interested in arranging a tour of the MRF for your business, please don't hesitate to get in touch.