Former England football keeper, David James, backs Utilita’s campaign to recycle 1 million pairs of football boots.

The boots, which would otherwise be thrown away, are to be collected in a freepost ‘boot bag’ ready for donation. After collection, the boots will be offered out at pop-up claim stations across parks, football clubs and training grounds.

The campaign “which makes recycling football boots with plenty of life left in them, really easy” according to founder of Utilita, Bill Bullen, also has a number of key financial and environmental benefits.

As well as saving money for families across the UK, it is hoped that Utilita’s ‘Football ReBooted’ campaign will also save as much as 136,000 tonnes of carbon: the equivalent of heating 50,370 homes in the UK for one year. David James has said “there are millions of football boots that people have grown out of or replaced, and we need to make sure they don’t end up in landfill.”

Adding that the ‘donate and claim’ campaign will “not only save players a few quid but will also act as an important reminder about the power of upcycling and reusing items that still have a lot of life left in them.”

United in their goals to help the environment, Premier League and EFL clubs across the UK have already stepped forward to donate their players’ retro, high quality and most wanted boots among other items.

With both academy and first team players from the likes of Southampton and Leeds United on board the campaign, there is hope that aspiring footballers will be given the opportunity to secure a pair of boots that are not only free or charge, but rich with prosperity. Inspired by Utilita’s recent ‘State of Play’ report, the campaign has also welcomed schools to request that boots be sent to their pupils who are in need of the footwear to play football in or outside of school.

The report, which found that 32% less players have been returning to the pitch since the pandemic, also found that 74% of families have been financially impacted as a result of COVID-19.

Of this, 18% of parents also reported that they can no longer send their children to grassroots football because they can’t afford the price of the boots, shin pads, and other items needed to play.

Historically, football has united players of all financial statuses and backgrounds across the globe to play at equal level and “forge new friendships, many of which last a lifetime” according to David James. On top of this, 63% of parents have reported both physical and health benefits of the sport for their children, with 55% agreeing that grassroots football is great for their child.

It is clear that football has more than simply its physical advantages for young people across the UK. Yet since the pandemic hit, 3 in 10 children have had to leave their club, with this number expected to rise even more in the coming months.

But whilst competing against waste and promoting recycling, Utilita have also created a culture of hope for young people and parents who have struggled throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

By making football boots free and accessible to those who need them, Utilita’s campaign aims to help young players to overcome the financial obstacles and return to the pitch to enjoy the “beautiful game” once more.

Vinyl sales are on the rise again as the retro disc soars back into popularity. Experiencing their second wind since their invention in 1948, the classic vinyl disk still has the same great sound, retro quality… and virgin-plastic composition. 

And with sales growing by more than 2200% since 2007, there’s a lot more plastic hitting the shelves. But times have changed since the 20th century, and that’s not how we do things anymore. 

In recent years, many traditionally virgin-plastic items have been redesigned to reflect the environmental movement. Plastic straws have turned to paper, the LEGO brick has turned to rPET, and plastic cling film has turned to…

Well, the point is that many manufacturers and brands who can avoid virgin plastic polymers, have done just that. So, is there a way to make the classic vinyl out of materials that don’t cost the earth?

Yes, it turns out there is! 

The new “Ocean Vinyl” has already hit the record shops with singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey’s single ‘The Anthropocene’ etched into its surface. 

Composed from recycled “fishing nets, fishing line, candy wrappers, potato chip bags” and other plastics found in the ocean, this new ‘green’ recycled vinyl manages to save the planet whilst maintaining its status as a “high-quality playable record”, according to Mulvey. 

And what’s more, each Ocean recycled Vinyl looks completely unique due to the uniqueness of the materials used to create them. 

Traditionally, the vinyl has been made out of PVC, Polyvinyl Chloride, hence the name “Vinyl”. But due to the toxic nature of chloride, PVC has always been notoriously difficult to recycle; with most of the material ending up in landfill or incineration. 

The new Ocean recycled Vinyl on the other hand plans on “disrupting the music industry norms and questioning norms about how we consume things and how we treasure plastic, or usually not” says Mulvey. 

But with only around 100 limited edition copies of the disc being made so far, it is still yet to be identified how the Ocean Vinyl will be produced on a mass scale. 

And as many record pressing plants are already fully established with the way that they produce PVC vinyls, this new way of doing things could take a while to really kick in. 

So whilst this solution may not be the answer to the vinyl plastic problem, it could at least be a catalyst for the music industry to begin exploring new alternatives to the PVC disc. 

And as this years’ vinyl sales are expected to surpass that of the CD for the first time since the 80’s, there really is no better time to experiment. 

Currently recycled at a rate of around 84% in the UK, corrugated cardboard is often considered a huge success story for recyclable packaging.

Widely accepted by both kerbside collection and recycling points across the UK, cardboard is prized for being both simple and economical to process into new material.

Cashing in on this, paper-based packaging producer Frugalpac has been working on the world’s first 96% recycled wine and spirits bottle.

The bottle, which has already been adopted by brands like ‘The English Vine’ and ‘NB Distillery’ is said to have a few major advantages to its’ glass alternative.

Weighing in at 5 times lighter than the glass bottle, the Frugal Bottle is also said to have a 6 times smaller carbon footprint than glass.

In addition, whilst research has seen cardboard decompose within 1 to 2 years, with heavily treated cardboard taking up to 5 years to decompose, a glass bottle is estimated to take 1 million years to decompose in the environment.

And with glass currently being recycled at a rate of around 50% in the UK, around 50% also goes to landfill each year (with 29% of glass bottles contributing to this statistic).

But despite the supposed environmental, economical, and physical benefits of the recycled Frugal Bottle, the innovative packaging relies upon commercial traction in order to achieve its production target of 80 million bottles per year.

This could be easier said than done, considering the popular consumer belief that paper-packaged wine is of a lesser quality than that in glass bottles.

But thanks to the global environmental movement of recent years, UK consumers have reportedly become increasingly aware of their packaging choices; making swaps from traditional, to more sustainable options.

And with 63% of UK wine drinkers reporting that they would make the switch to a paper-based bottle, things appear to be so-far-so-good for the Ipswitch-based producer.

Furgalpak also believes that their packaging could be a win-win for businesses, with their Chief Executive, Malcolm Waugh, claiming that their offering could present a “huge opportunity for brands and packaging companies to boost their revenue and profit.”

This could be good news for paper and cardboard recycling companies, as the demand for paper-based recycling will inevitably need to rise to meet the expected demand.

As paper and cardboard are both ready-processed materials, their recycling is not only an easy process, but also requires up to 50% less energy to recycle than to manufacture from scratch.

Once sorted and shredded, recycled cardboard is ‘pulped’ with water and then filtered to remove various contaminants.

Requiring very little machinery and resources, this form of recycling has already been implemented on varying scales in facilities across the UK.

And with readily available size reduction machinery from major brands like AMIS and Zerma, more and more companies are becoming aware of these off-the-shelf solutions to their paper and cardboard recycling applications.

Partnered with the government’s tax Super Deduction initiative, it seems there really has been no better time to make these investments for the UK.

For now, let’s all raise a paper-based glass to the success of Frugalpac on their mission for a greener economy!

To learn more about the UK Government’s Super Deduction initiative, read our press release here.

For more information about paper and cardboard shredding equipment, visit our dedicated size reduction page here.

The compostable bag was first introduced to the retail industry as a way to curb the plastic problem and close the loop on the production of carrier bags. 

With their dual usability, compostable bags can be first used to bring goods and groceries home from the shops, and then used to line compost bins at home. 

Commonly made from vegetable matter, such as potato and corn starch, compostable bags were originally brought in as an alternative to one-use plastic carrier bags.

And with the ability to be decomposed by microorganisms such as bacteria, the compostable bag has often even been favoured to other one-use alternatives such as the ‘Bag For Life’. 

However, a common misconception about the biodegradable bag is that decomposition will occur in the natural environment.

This could mean that by sending compostable bags to waste, they could end up in the oceans or landfill and naturally begin to decompose.

However, the reality is that the bags need to be treated in optimum conditions in order to decompose effectively; such as those harvested by industrial composting plants. 

And, in order to be considered a ‘compostable bag’, the material must conform to the standards set by their governing body. 

For members of the European Union, this means adhering to the EN 14995 directive, whereby compostable products must have visibly disintegrated within 3 months, and biodegrade by at least 90% in six months when being treated at 60°C in an industrial composting plant. 

The issue with this process is that very often end-users of the compostable bag don’t know where their food waste is sent to.

While some households might have their food waste collected for industrial composting plants, others could be sent for processing in an Anaerobic Digestion plant.

Due to their high water content of up to 54%, compostable bags can often present a problem when they end up in AD plants as they require an extended drying period before their dry matter can be processed. 

It has therefore been suggested that a new biopolymer should be identified for use in compostable bags, along with a new standard for plastics that will biodegrade in biogas plants. 

However, the varying conditions across different biogas plants means that they could operate under varying temperatures, time periods, and using different microorganisms; thereby making developing a standard a more challenging task. 

Another issue with the biodegradable bag is that, in previous years, it has been confused with a recyclable plastic and placed in with plastic recycling by end-users. 

Whilst it is estimated that plastic recycling plants have the capacity to deal with up to 10% contamination from compostable bags, they have been known to present a much wider issue than just causing contamination. 

Due to their high elasticity and lightweight structure, compostable bags have the tendency to get wrapped around the rotors, screw augers and other components within mechanical recycling plant machinery, causing them to get jammed and ultimately resulting in machine downtime.

On the other hand, compostable bags which have survived the mechanical recycling process have been known to end up in recycled goods where, true to form, they have begun to decompose; leaving gaps in recycled products and rendering them useless. 

Equal but opposite, it has also been estimated that around 5% of materials that are collected for bio-waste plants are non-organic; with the majority of contaminants being made up of plastic. 

To a certain extent, the fate of the biodegradable bags, much like that of recyclable plastic, lies in the hands of the end-user. 

By placing biodegradable bags in the brown food compost caddy provided by the local authorities, end-users can set the compostable bag off on the right tracks.

Thereafter, the bag will rely on the optimum conditions of an industrial composting plant in order to be degraded in the way in which it was intended. 

Find out more about one-use plastic bag alternatives in our press release: Has the ‘Bag For Life’ become a thing of the past?

To read more about the UK’s response to the plastic problem, see our press release about Closing the loop on plastics with UK-based recycling infrastructure and The future is circular.