Composting in London, Brighton and Sussex

We’re celebrating! 2025 marks five years of the Recorra x Vegware partnership. We joined forces in 2020 to provide businesses in the South East of England with a composting solution for their used Vegware packaging and food scraps.  

Why compostables?

The simple answer is food remnants.

Mixed materials and food residues in packaging makes it very difficult to recycle. Food residue, in foodservice packaging – who would have thought?

The solution: composting.

Through the Recorra x Vegware partnership, businesses in London, Brighton and Sussex can compost their used Vegware packaging. The waste is taken to Envar – an in-vessel composting facility in Cambridgeshire. In just seven weeks the used Vegware packaging and food scraps are turned into high-grade compost for use on agriculture, horticulture, and landscaping.

This partnership is a great example of the UK’s circular economy in action. It’s why five years of partnership is a big deal. Over 100 sites and and lots of compost later; we’re marking the partnerships’ fifth birthday. To celebrate the occasion, we thought we’d look at five highlights over the years.

1) Setting up the partnership 

For both Vegware and Recorra, sustainability is at our core. In 2020, with the increasing amount of compostable packaging being used, we teamed up to run a trial with 10 medium-large scale sites. With some training, bin signage and engagement materials, we saw some great results. The rest was history. 

2) The first case study 

PIMCO marked the first case study for the Recorra x Vegware partnership. They were one of the first sites to sign up for composting collections after the trials and are still composting their used Vegware today. 

PIMCO only had small kitchenettes in their HQ, making crockery use unfeasible. As we know, single-use foodservice packaging and recycling doesn’t mix very well. When the option arose to compost instead, PIMCO joined the route. 

3) The UK’s first compostables sorting line 

In 2021, we worked with WRAP to install the UK’s first compostables sorting line at Recorra’s Materials Recovery Facility in Essex. With this sorting line, we have been able to remove non-compostable items that have snuck in– making things easier for the composting facility to turn the waste into high-grade compost. 

4) Compostable Coalition UK

As part of Compostable Coalition UK, we worked with behavioural change experts from the University of Sheffield and Hubbub to develop an intervention at three London workplaces. The intervention sought to increase recycling rates for compostable packaging in a closed loop environment.  

The research’s interventions saw the target material in the compostables bin – compostable packaging and food scraps – rise from 56% to 91%, on average across the three catered offices. 

Compost for lunch! 

In 2024, we attended lunch! and the partnership came to the fore again.  Visitors were treated to a cup of organic, speciality coffee, courtesy of Owens Coffee. Owens served their coffee in a custom printed Vegware cup that invited customers to dispose of them in a composting bin on stand when finished. At the end of the show, Recorra collected the used cups and took them to Envar for composting. 

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