Greene King’s Tub2Pub recycling initiative collected a phenomenal 150,000 sweets and crackers tubs this year, that’s six times more than in 2023, meaning its biggest benefit to date for the environment and charity.
The country’s leading pub company and brewer runs the annual Tub2Pub recycling scheme in January and February, and money raised from the recycled plastic is donated to its partner Macmillan Cancer Support, helping the charity continue to support people living with cancer.
This year, 150,000 plastic tubs were collected, that’s around a 500% increase on previous totals. It means 21 tonnes of polypropylene plastic has been saved from landfill and recycled while raising £12,600 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Commenting on the results, Vance Fairman-Smith, Greene King’s supply chain director said: “We have been blown away by the incredible success of Tub2Pub this year! It is brilliant how it has really captured people’s attention. These record-breaking results show just how much appetite there is for recycling and fundraising. It is great to see this increase in engagement with people and businesses across our communities. Huge thanks to everyone who collected the tubs to drop off at their local Greene King pub. It’s such good news for the environment and for charity.”
This is the fourth year Greene King has run Tub2Pub. Overall it has collected 26,253kg of plastic, which is around 230,000 tubs, raising £23,908 for Macmillan.
Rachel Gascoigne, senior partnership manager from Macmillan Cancer Support said: “We are always so impressed by the fundraising efforts of both Greene King’s team members and its customers to do whatever it takes for people living with cancer and would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has made Tub2Pub the enormous success it has been this year. The simple fact is that every tub recycled goes towards helping someone living with cancer. Every tub, every penny and every pound makes a difference.”
Greene King’s Tub2Pub will be back in 2025. It offers people a recycling solution for the thousands of polypropylene sweets and biscuits tubs sold over the festive period particularly. These tubs cannot be easily recycled at kerbside collections and often end up in landfill.
Recycling solutions experts, co-cre8 facilitates the Tub2Pub campaign, working with DCW Polymers who recycle the polypropylene tubs into handmade 100% recycled plastic outdoor products, such as picnic benches and dog agility equipment.
Peter Goodwin, managing director at co-cre8 said: “What a fantastic achievement this year! Tub2Pub continues to lead the way in demonstrating what can be achieved when communities and businesses are fully engaged and aligned on a simple system with clearly communicated outcomes and benefits.”
Emily Almond, business development manager at DCW Polymers added: “It has been amazing to see the vast stacks of tubs arrive to us for recycling, especially when we remember that every single tub makes a real difference to Macmillan and the people they support. We are busy recycling the tubs into our outdoor products – they were full of sweets a few months ago but will have a new life as a picnic bench before we know it!”
ENDS
Notes to editors
Greene King is the country’s leading pub company and brewer with c.2,600 pubs, restaurants and hotels across England, Wales and Scotland.
At Greene King we are passionate about delivering our purpose to ‘pour happiness into lives’. That’s for our customers, our team, our pub partners, our suppliers and the communities in which we live, operate and serve. Founded in 1799 with offices in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk and Burton on Trent in Staffordshire we employ around 39,000 people across the group with four divisions: Greene King pubs, Destination Brands, Partnership and Ventures, and Brewing & Brands.
- Greene King pubs is our mainstream pub brand located where people and communities come together; pubs enjoyed in cities, towns and villages throughout the country with clear ambition to be “The Nation’s Most Loved Pub Brand”.
- Destination Brands is a portfolio of distinct brands which includes Hungry Horse, Chef & Brewer, Farmhouse Inns and Flaming Grill that bring friends and family together, delivering great service, quality and value for money for a range of eating out and drinking occasions.
- Partnerships & Ventures includes Pub Partners, which runs our tenanted and leased pubs business and Hive Franchise pubs, and our Ventures Brands which is made up of Metropolitan Pub Company, Hickory’s, Hotels Group and Crafted Pubs.
- Brewing & Brands covers the brewing sides of the business. Quality ales are brewed at the Westgate brewery in Bury St Edmunds and the Belhaven Brewery in Dunbar. Our industry-leading portfolio includes Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale, Ice Breaker and Belhaven Best and our premium beers, Level Head and Flint Eye, brewed for the modern-day drinker.
About Macmillan Cancer Support
At Macmillan, we give people with cancer everything we’ve got. If you’re diagnosed, your worries are our worries. We will do whatever it takes to help you live life as fully as you can. And we don’t stop there. We’re going all out to find ever better ways to help people with cancer, helping to bring forward the day when everyone gets life-transforming support from day one. As cancer is evolving, so must we. Macmillan will not settle for anything other than the best possible support for people living with cancer. As a charity, we can’t afford to stand still. Now more than ever, we need to take every chance to make a difference. But we cannot do it alone. We have been working with others for over 100 years and will continue to do so. So, we’re working to create a vision of Macmillan that is shaped side by side with the people and communities we exist to support. To find out more about how Macmillan is doing this visit Transforming Macmillan together | Macmillan Cancer Support
About co-cre8
co-cre8 was founded with a vision that our much-needed transition from a linear economic model to a more circular one can only be achieved through systemic thinking.
From the many years’ experience designing and implementing recycling programmes, including the world-leading Simply Cups cup recycling scheme, co-cre8 now have a unique understanding of how to both create and maintain consumer engagement and increase material collected.
As demonstrated by their Honest Bottle brand, co-cre8 also has the ability to turn these materials back into beautifully designed, functional products that perfectly demonstrates the success of recycling programmes and the circular economy.
Contact: Greene King Press Office PressOffice@greeneking.co.uk
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