Top 50 Recycling Sites

Waste is a huge part of our lives and it is becoming a bigger concern each year, as more waste and rubbish is created in large quantities. As a result, the number of organizations and people involved in recycling waste has seen a rise. Greenmatch.co.uk decided to acknowledge some of these and have gathered 50 sites that deserve special recognition for their efforts in recycling and waste management. 

Congratulations to all those listed under our top 50 recycling sites!

“Nigel’s Eco Store is a fairly involved venture and as MD I’m learning a lot, which is good for me. Really I’m just an ordinary guy, trying to make a difference, and finding my way through a confusing world – just like everyone I guess. I like to think I’m creative and intuitive, and I’m loving working with the internet, and with eco products and environmental awareness and ideas.” - nigelsecostore.com/blog

“Ecowaste provides innovative, cost effective, tailored waste management solutions across the UK for multiple sectors and clients of all sizes. Ecowaste solutions enable them to reduce waste costs, the amount of waste sent to landfill, waste collection frequency and their carbon footprint. Landfill availability is ever reducing. Taxes on volumes sent to landfill will continue to increase. Correctly recycled waste reduces the amount sent to landfill and leads to a reduction in waste handling costs.” - ecowastesolutions.co.uk

“This year Trunki is teaming up with Reuseful UK, a fantastic children’s charity supporting a network of over 90 scrap stores and centres across the UK. The centres are dedicated to providing safe resources donated by businesses for creative art, craft and play, transforming waste into robots, treasure and hours of fun!” - trunki.co.uk/blog

“We believe that by promoting community driven projects in renewable energy, food sovereignty, sustainable transport and recycling in all its forms, and as part of the overall Transition Movement we are contributing to the two critical issues of peak oil and climate change.Our approach to addressing these issues is underpinned by the permaculture philosophy and ethics. We believe that the transition to a more resilient and happy life cannot happen without reducing inequality in our society.” - transitionmarlborough.org

“We live in a society that is huge on consumption. Not only do we consume, but each purchase creates a lot of waste. By crafting with recycled materials, I am hoping to teach my kids to reduce the amount of waste they produce, to see the value in something before they throw it away and to think a little bit about our environment and the impact we are having on it. Am passionate about reducing waste, one upcycled craft at a time.” - redtedart.com/category/recycling

“We want to do this to give people interesting homes and to protect the environment. This work has an economic impact and allows us to employ staff, create work placements and train volunteers. We also aim to have a financial impact on households because you can buy great furniture at low prices and finally any profit/surplus we make goes to our founder charities and their partners.” - reviive.co.uk

“Both of the facilities have a dedicated in-vessel composting area for garden waste, designed to process 80,000 tonnes per annum. Farington also boasts a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) which uses state of the art technology to treat 55,000 tonnes of source separated dry recyclables per year. Whilst treating waste in the most environmentally beneficial and cost effective way is essential, we realise that behaviour change both now and in future generations is as important.” - globalrenewables.co.uk

“Recycling Services offers you the best of both worlds. We operate completely independently allowing for the flexibility to tailor solutions to our customer’s needs, but are owned by Cory Environmental, one of the UK’s leading recycling and waste companies with a history in waste management that dates back for over a century.” - recycling-services.co.uk

“We want to tell everyone in Suffolk that you can now recycle even more in your recycling bin at home. To make life even easier, you can now pop aerosol cans, books, cartons and metal pots, pans and trays into your household recycling bin. And don’t forget to keep recycling your paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, tubs, pots and trays, aluminum foil, metal cans and textiles too.” - www.suffolkrecycle.info

“Sustainable Hackney aims to protect and enhance the environment, create a sustainable community and contribute to social, economic and environmental justice locally and globally. Some of our objectives are to bring together, support and coordinate the activities of people and organizations in the London Borough of Hackney to create positive solutions as well as promote increased awareness and develop understanding of environmental issues and the work of environmental organizations.” - sustainablehackney.org.uk

“Welcome to Impact Solutions, the leading provider of technology consultancy and testing services across the global petrochemicals and plastics industries. We think you will find us an exciting company. Working closely with SETN, the Scottish Executive and Zero Waste Scotland, Impact provide a number of consultancy and quality control solutions for the recycling sector. Whether you need to know about contaminants in your waste stream, or find a use for your waste, Impact are able to help and advise”. - impact-solutions.co.uk

“We are one of Scotland’s largest environmental charities – a thriving social enterprise with over 20 years’ experience in sustainability. We work with organisations, communities and individuals to deliver practical solutions that reduce carbon emissions, fuel poverty and waste. Passion, integrity, innovation, collaboration and empowerment are the values which drive us. We aim to inspire and enable people to live and work more sustainably.” - changeworks.org.uk

“We're passionate about zero waste because reducing consumption and waste and increasing recycling is a really tangible thing that everyday people can do. It's easy to see when you're improving, and it can be the launchpad for more sustainability actions.” - cleanbinproject.com

“Established in 2006, Recycled UK has evolved into one of the country’s leading providers of total waste management solutions. The management team of Paul Green, Paul Cotton and Sue Green boasts 75 years’ experience in industry and has used this knowledge to create a range of tailored recycling services for customers from every sector imaginable.” - recycleduklimited.com

"The Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board (SWMCB) was formed in 1990 to increase the efficiency and environmental effectiveness of the region's solid waste management system. The SWMCB launched its first education outreach campaign in 2003 to help citizens living in the six-county Twin Cities metro area (the Minnesota counties of Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington) understand the need to make environmentally responsible purchasing, disposal, and recycling decisions in their daily lives. Responsible disposal of unwanted items is necessary for a healthy environment and helps protect public health." - rethinkrecycling.com

"RecycleNation is a dynamic recycling and green living-focused website that makes recycling, conserving, reusing and living wisely easy.

RecycleNation features a comprehensive recycling location database that gives the user the ability to easily assemble a recycling to-do list. The database is location based, and aims to make your recycling needs as easy as possible, whether you're clearing out the house during spring cleaning or simply looking to recycle a few shopping bags.

RecycleNation is regularly updated with important how-to directives aimed at increasing recycling awareness. Visit regularly for eco-friendly stories, ideas, news, anecdotes and initiatives. By changing the way we think, we can change the way we live." - recyclenation.com

"Four years on, we’ve covered over 900 items and had over 14,000 suggestions of ways to reuse, repurpose or recycle things that would otherwise go in the bin. We’ve covered items from around the home, office and garden, things for particularly hobbies or sports, and random bits of technology that have broken or are just out of date.

We aim to add new content every weekday – if you have any ideas for items or would like to make/repair something, suggest them to us – all suggestions gratefully received. We’re currently in the process of writing more guides and the like, pulling together the best suggestions and information from across the site, and also adding more interactive features, which will hopefully make it easier for people to reduce, reuse and recycle." - recyclethis.co.uk

"AWS Ltd operate a waste transfer station, civic amenity, skip hire and recycling centre in Llangadog, Carmarthenshire. The staff at the site sort, process and recycle the materials that are deposited at the site with overall landfill diversion rates of 90%. AWS Ltd also directly recycle some materials on site. For example wood is processed into various grades for animal bedding and biomass fuel, and hard core and rubble are recycled into various grades of aggregate. One key part of this operation is the new food waste recycling facility. This is an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant, commissioned in early 2011, developed specifically to process source segregated food waste from domestic, commercial and industrial sources in the local area." -allwasteservicesltd.com

"Yorwaste specialises in creating environmentally sound waste management and recycling solutions for our customers across the UK. We see waste a resource that, wherever possible, needs to be recovered, recycled and re-used and to this end we invest continually in the latest state-of-the-art technologies to facilitate this recovery." - yorwaste.co.uk

"Waste Awareness Wales (WAW) is a Welsh Government funded organisation that delivers communication and behaviour change projects which encourages the Welsh public to change their waste behaviours and contribute to meeting the Welsh Government’s prevention, reuse and recycling targets set out in the Wales Waste policy ‘Towards Zero Waste’.WAW deliver a programme of support for local authorities in their waste communications to help achieve waste targets by encouraging public behaviour change and increased participation in using local authority recycling and other waste services. WAW delivers the consumer facing, Recycle for Wales campaign and the Love Food Hate Waste campaign in Wales. " -recycleforwales.org.uk

The Recycle Works Limited is a recycling company that was first created in 1995 by Sylvia Hopwood. It mainly targets organic waste recycling within the family and offers several types of products according to the type of recycling you are interested in. Those products groups are the following ones: water recycling, composting, vermicomposting, sorting waste, organic gardening, kitchen waste recycling and so on. The Recycle Works Limited only works with raw products that are accredited Fair Trade, FSC wood or coming from a European sustainable forest. -recycleworks.co.uk

"Recolight have a key objective to increase the WEEE recycling rate for separately collected luminaires.  The 2012 full year data shows a collection rate of just 1%. This is far too low.Recolight has put in place strategies to increase the national collection rate building on our success in the collection of waste lamps. Recolight members were responsible for over 40% of the 984 tonnes of luminaires recycled as WEEE during 2013. However, despite this increase, the overall national recorded luminaire recycling rate in 2013 2% remains too low." -recolight.co.uk

"Gigacycle Ltd is one of the leading IT disposal and recycling providers in the UK. Formed in 2003, we are based in Manchester and provide services for clients all over the UK, using our own drivers and vehicles.We go beyond the current WEEE legislation to provide a superior service, and we also provide a secure data destruction service that meets the highest UK standards." -gigacycle.co.uk

"At present we process over 15,000 end-of-life vehicles every year and specialise in online salvage auctions with over 1,000 damage-repairable and stolen-recovered cars, vans and bikes available for purchase every single week.We also boast an extensive used car parts centre. With over 2,000 vehicles stored at our premises for vehicle dismantling, we can supply used car parts for a large number of vehicles in the UK and across the world." - asm-autos.co.uk

"Can the average person really create zero waste? Karen Cannard, a mother of 2, from Bury St Edmunds gave it a go in 2008 and blogged about it all. By the end of an 8 week trial she threw away only one plaster! 7 years on, she’s still blogging.  She’s teamed up the social enterprise Cwm Harry to bring The Rubbish Diet Challenge across the UK.

Over three weeks, The Rubbish Diet will help you recycle more, shop better and make the most of what you have in your cupboards. We send you emails packed with top tips and advice to get you started. We’re here to answer your questions, share your successes and help you solve those annoying waste problems." -therubbishdiet.org.uk

"edie.net has been the market-leading information resource driving sustainability in business for nearly 20 years. A trusted and integral part of the workflow of 60,000+ sustainability professionals, it delivers daily news and commentary, expert advice and business tools, downloadable industry reports and white papers, access to video and webinars, opt-in daily and weekly newsletters, recruitment news and a comprehensive directory of sustainability suppliers. " - edie.net

"CROW Recycling is a Coventry based Social Enterprise with charitable status established in 1985. At centrally located premises (within the community’s recycling facility) voluntary work placements are provided for young people and adults who may face disadvantage in the workplace through disability and/or learning difficulties. CROW works in partnership with local authorities, educational establishments, local businesses and community groups in the Coventry and Warwickshire area in order to promote the cause for sustainable recycling." -crowrecycling.co.uk

"I set up Sussex Green Living out of concern for the way we humans are treating the planet which sustains us. With motherhood in 2008 came concern about environmental sustainability and a burning desire to learn how we can live more environmentally friendly lifestyles, in harmony with nature. I have always had a passion for the countryside, animals and the natural environment. Most of my career has been spent in marketing and communications, mainly within education and the land based industries, latterly using the power of video communications. In an effort to help create a climate for change I decided to use my knowledge and digital skills to share ideas which anyone can adopt, saving money and the planet." Carrie Cort -sussexgreenliving.co.uk

"At Phoenix, we are experts in waste management and always ensure that we deliver you cost-effective solutions with our high standard balers and compactors, alongside outstanding customer service. With cardboard currently fetching record prices, there's no better time for baling your materials to create substantial additional income streams for your business.Our aim is to help your business save money, improve efficiency and become more environmentally friendly." -phoenixcompactors.co.uk

"Our purpose encompasses everything that we do. We're giving the world’s resources new life. Whether those resources are collected by our vehicles from a primary school in Kent or delivered into our Energy Recovery Facilities in Cardiff or Runcorn, we transform ‘waste’ into the items and energy that society will need tomorrow. Gone is the traditional ‘waste’ collection and disposal company. To achieve our purpose we have established two distinct business units Recycling and Resources and Energy. These business units help us to focus our time and expertise on the services that our customers’ want." -viridor.co.uk

"TGF is a light green resource and shopping blog, with lots of great tips and info to help green your life with all things organic and eco friendly, for the whole family. It is targeting ‘Light Green’ families who wish to become greener in their lifestyle and shopping habits. We aim to bring you the best green, organic and eco friendly products available, along with green tips and info to help simplify the whole process." -thegreenfamilia.com

"Recycle with Clarity is an initiative to increase the household recycling rates of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). We have created a UK-wide network of “partner sites”. Many of these sites have public access offering an alternative recycling solution to local Civic Amenity sites which are not always local to residents, and can often have lengthy queues. All drop-offs are free of charge, and many partner sites also offer free local collections of household WEEE. We work with the full spectrum of recycling sites – from the most sophisticated Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities (AATFs), to the “man with a van” local clearance specialists." -recyclewithclarity.com

"Element Green Recycling Ltd is an environmental company. It was formed to help the public recycle, reduce and reuse their waste. "Helping you make Recycling Second Nature" is not only our slogan but the core of our business too. At Element Green Recycling we believe recycling is a practical solution to the Earth's finite resources and it should be encouraged. Equally recycling is just one of many tools by which we can address our waste problem. It is our opinion that buying products that has a recycled content is just as important as recycling!" -elementgreenrecycling.co.uk

"The Green Centre is a grassroots community environmental organisation run entirely by volunteers. The essence of our work is to enable people to develop their relationship with the planet. We provide opportunities for people to engage in activities which support the planet and our recycling program is considered the best in Brighton because of the variety of materials we are able to recycle." -thegreencentre.co.uk

"Our company specializes in redundant IT equipment disposal with an ethical and a legal procedure put in place aimed at customer’s safety and security. The company’s top priority is  to ensure a smooth implementation of a waste management programme concerned with the  proper disposal of potential hazardous IT appliances. We make sure that every organization we collaborate with is playing their part in preventing the redundant IT equipment ending up on waste sites." -ecogreenitrecycling.co.uk

"Recycle.co.uk is a free listings website that allows users to list items they are willing to give away for free in an attempt to help others within their community and stop items that are perfectly reusable from going to landfill. We aim to help raise lots of money for Charity and good causes in the process too, as well as educating the UK on the importance of working towards becoming a zero waste nation where things are no longer simply discarded when others could make good use of them." -recycle.co.uk 

"Letsrecycle.com is part of the Environment Media Group Ltd and is the UK’s leading independent dedicated website for businesses, local authorities and community groups involved in recycling and waste management. As the industry’s top information-provider, we deliver news and material prices plus key information for businesses sector ranging from suppliers of plant, equipment, vehicles and services through to job vacancies, careers advice and tenders. letsrecycle.com is editorially independent. Our editorial team has more than two decades of experience in the recycling and waste management arena. letsrecycle.com’s philosophy is to champion waste minimisation, re-use and recycling while recognising the need for a range of sustainable waste management options." -letsrecycle.com

The University of Greenwich is recognised as a leading university for its application and delivery of sustainability. It seeks creative and innovative approaches to enable sustainability to be integrated at all levels and in all areas of the institution. This includes the huge potential in aligning the curriculum and research towards sustainability, reducing its own impacts and sharing best practice with its local and wider communities. Their use of social media and their website provide useful information to educate, engage and enable sustainable change. -blogs.gre.ac.uk

Turtle Doves is a British design and manufacturing company established in 2009, specialising in using post consumer textile waste to create beautiful new garments & accessories. It is also a social company as it strives to pay its employees a healthy wage for their work, while staying competitive by implementing a clever design and avoiding middlemen. Turtle Doves buys its woollens from charity shops and textile merchants whom mainly bought their waste textiles.
On their website you can choose between different materials: cashmere or silk and different products such as scarves, gloves, ponchos, hats and leg warmers. -turtle-doves.co.uk

This company concept is really particular. The idea? Delivering fresh organic food (mainly fruits and vegetables) coming from small farms to consumers. How does it work? You register online and select the food you would like to eat for a specific week and the box containing the food. Then you are delivered at home, even if you’re out, Abel&Cole will hide the box in a secure place. The recycling initiative? When the next delivery comes, just give them your previous box, they can reuse it or recycle it! -abelandcole.co.uk

Preloved was created in 1999 in the UK and is a market platform where buyers and sellers can meet and discuss about more than 500 product categories. Preloved is really concerned with environmental and social aspects such as recycling and animal welfare. You can find on their blog pages articles specially linked to recycling like tips to reuse plastic bottles or recycle during christmas period. Preloved for example talked about campaigns made by WRAP to promote recycling such as “love food hate waste”, “love your clothes”, “recycle now to recycle more”. Preloved is therefore supporting WRAP in its recycling initiatives. -preloved.co.uk

This website is directed to recycling companies to help them in getting additional customers. This initiative is really interesting as recycling companies can be listed according to their localisations, Recycle Aid providing you with their contact details and images about the site. In addition, Recycle Aid offers the companies to publish tips or news concerning the recycling sector on their blog page. Therefore this recycling platform helps companies to be more reachable for private individuals. -recycleaid.co.uk

Everyone has heard of the Red Cross Foundation. However, few know about the recycling campaign the Red Cross implemented few years ago. On their website you can contribute and donate unwanted items to their charity shops or old ink cartridges and old mobile phones. From the mobile phones you will recycle, you give 50% of their market value to the organization. Concerning ink cartridges, you also help the red cross foundation by giving them £1 per ink cartridge recycled. It sounds like nothing but it can save so many lives! -redcross.org.uk

The University of Lincoln, which was established in the East Midlands in 1861, has established a blog informing the community about the different green actions that were undertaken on the campus. Concerning recycling, the University of Lincoln is informing the community about different ways of recycling in the student village. The university has notably installed new, more performant recycling bins to sort waste and thus decrease the amount of trash that is not recycled and goes to landfill. You can also recycle your old clothes on the campus as a cloth bank has been installed. -environment.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk

BP&R is a monthly magazine about the plastic and rubber industries in the UK. The company website provides its users with the latest news and technical articles on the subject. The magazine has been published in UK and Ireland since 1976 and is highly trusted in the industry. Concerning the recycling side of those two industries, the magazine wrote a lot of content and blog posts concerning plastic bottle recycling, new technology for a better efficiency while recycling. -britishplastics.co.uk

"REB is a digital news publisher covering issues with respect to recycling, waste management, energy consumption, at the same time providing insights and analysis reports on the subject of sustainability. In so doing, REB plays an important role in spreading the word of sustainable recycling, for which reason it has its place in the ongoing discussions and efforts aimed at encouraging the use of renewable energy sources."-rebnews.com

"Emmaus doesn't just make a difference to people's lives, it also helps save the environment, by recycling and reusing as much as possible. In 2012-13 Emmaus saved more than 3000 tonnes of goods from going to landfill. Many of our communities have workshops where companions, staff and volunteers work together to restore furniture that may have been neglected. This gives companions the chance to learn new skills, or use existing ones, while also taking great pride in giving donated items a new lease of life."-emmaus.org.uk

“Entire Recycling was founded in 2011. The company was built to deliver profitable, long-term relationships between itself and customers. After a 12-month audit of the industry and common practices, the Entire Recycling developed its core principles which facilitate their relationship with their customers.” -entirerecycling.co.uk/blog

This association has founded one of the biggest recycling network in the world, with up to 8,867,963 members throughout the world. The principle of this network is simple: rather than throwing old things that you do not use anymore, post an offer on the website to give it to someone else! This association is a non-profit one and the donation are done in local areas to avoid transportation costs. This concept was first created in Arizona in 2003 and is now spread in 85 countries. -freecycle.org

This company takes PET soft drinks and water bottles and milk bottles made out of HDPE to recycle them. The recycle elements are then used to create new bottles or food packaging. The factory, situated in Dagenham, can recycleup to 35,000 tonnes of bottles per year. The mission of Closed Loop Recycling is the following one: "recycling resources to maximise their value and minimise their environmental impact for the benefit of future generations". -closedlooprecycling.co.uk