Waste management company Viridor has launched the UK’s first hard hat recycling scheme as it aims to divert thousands of tonnes of complex plastic away from landfill.

Hard hats, which only have a lifespan of two to five years, pose a problem to recyclers and reprocessors due to the properties of the complex plastic polymers used to create them.

Now, recycling and waste management company Viridor has teamed up with Devon-based plastic recycling specialists, Polymer Industries, to provide an end of life solution for the hard-to-recycle item, turning the waste product into a range of new ones such as, ironically, waste paper bins.

The new scheme is currently only available in the South West, in a trial rolled out by Babcock International Group that has so far seen 1,200 hard hats recycled – but further expansion is envisaged.

Commenting on the new scheme, Ian Poyser, Viridor’s Account Manager responsible for the offering, said: “Hard hats aren’t accepted for commercial recycling due to their complex plastic composition but we know our customers want us to identify a Circular Economy solution.

“This new service is the result of two companies coming together in a mutual mission to take complex plastic items away from the general waste stream. It is just one of the many ways we are working to target specific plastic items this year.”

Jason Goozée, Managing Director at Polymer Industries in South Brent, added: “We are working with Viridor in a way where I believe there has been no real commercial solution to date.

“Along with Viridor, we see that with the correct infrastructure and process capabilities in place, we can convert conventional waste into a reusable commodity.

“In the current climate where there is scrutiny over the use of plastics, we hope to show that it is not always necessary to design plastics out of our lives, but instead to design the best appropriate means of recovering and recycling them.”

Meanwhile, Laura Parry, Waste Services Manager, Babcock Devonport, said: “Babcock is always looking at ways to become more sustainable and we work hard to manage our waste as efficiently as possible.

“It has been a positive experience working in partnership with Viridor and we hope that the programme will be rolled out more widely in the future.’’

The announcement follows on the heels of the launch of the UK Plastics Pact (28 April), a joint initiative set up by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and of which Viridor is a founder signatory. The Pact commits businesses to eliminating ‘unnecessary’ single-use plastic packaging by 2025 and to advancing plastic recycling and reprocessing.

At the time, Viridor’s Regulatory Affairs Director Dan Cooke commented: “The Pact sets out clear UK ambitions for a more responsible and resource-efficient approach to plastics by all sectors, including our own, and provides the practical framework Viridor has been calling for so long.

“The UK uses 38.5 million plastic bottles every day, of which 15 million are still not recycled. And that’s just the bottles. This shows the scale of the opportunity that we all have to make a real difference.

“This Pact is a big step forward because it enables all stakeholders to direct their efforts to meaningful change on plastic. This includes consistent local authority collections to make it easier for households to put the right stuff in the right bin. The Pact also includes crucial commitments to design products for easier recyclability and to include more recycled content into the material being produced which will create the market demand to underpin the recycling process and greater investment in innovation.”