As well as being one of the largest retailers in the UK, Tesco are the largest single largest commercial source of recovered cardboard and plastic. On an annual basis the company produces over 185,000 tonnes of cardboard and 14,000 tonnes of plastic. Severnside is the chosen recycler for Tesco and has been managing the recovery of this material for over 8 years. This project demonstrates Severnside ability to deliver on the largest of projects; annually this recovered material is transport back to the 9 Tesco Distribution support units on 13.5 million cages.

Severnside are responsible for the baling equipment to handle this material through design and specification to maintenance and onward transportation of the material for final reprocessing. Ensuring that the recovery system is effective even in peak or breakdown situations is essential as any one of the Tesco support units can be asked to handle up to 1400 cages per hour.

Features of the Tesco & Severnside partnership include;

· Design provision and management of recycling equipment worth in excess of £3m.

· Continuous 24x7 support for Tesco distribution locations as part of the Just In Time supply Chain.

· Provision of Guaranteed reprocessing outlets for 200,000 tonnes of recyclate.

· Continuous Improvement of recovery process through implementation of best
practice at store level.

· Dedicated Staff

Any recovery system needs management to ensure that it works at an optimum level. Severnside and Tesco are embarking on a programme that will see Severnside employing dedicated Recycling Advisors to champion best practice at store level, involving education programmes, on site monitoring and the production of management information to assist Tesco line management to increase recycling and reduce their overall waste bill.