Northwood Hygiene Products is taking washroom recycling to a new level with the expansion of its Green Loop recycling package, which now includes paper hand towel recycling and stub roll recycling.
Under its newly extended full-circle service, which is designed to help customers lower their waste footprint, Northwood will take these often-unrecycled items from washrooms, turn them into raw materials and create future sustainable washroom hygiene products.
Customers who sign up for the scheme are provided with dedicated recycling bins, which collect the paper waste in the washroom. The paper is then collected and sorted before recycling through one of Northwood’s UK paper mills, and then made into one of Northwood’s recycled paper hygiene products.
Joel Quick, Sustainability Manager at Northwood, commented: “Separating hand towels from general waste at the point of use is terrific progress in addressing the amount of waste potentially destined for landfill and helping end users to minimise their environmental impact. We were keen to work with our customers to explore recycling a variety of paper waste, including stub rolls too.
“We felt it was important to do something to overcome a common issue with some tissue products, where as much as 20% of the roll can be wasted because washroom maintenance staff may change the rolls earlier than they need to in order to avoid run-outs. Similarly in hotels, there can be dozens of half-used toilet rolls thrown away every day, because the venue insists on using a new toilet roll in the bathroom every time a guest checks-in. With this service, staff simply pop the stub roll waste into the recycling bin and we do the rest.”
Focusing on plastics, Northwood’s Green Loop programme was first launched in 2023 and it has continued to expand and evolve since then, with around 250 customers now actively using it.
Earlier this year, the Telford-based business expanded its Green Loop initiative with the introduction of a dispenser recycling service. Under the scheme, Northwood removes old soap and paper dispensers from customer premises and recycles them as part of its market-leading installation service. The plastic recovered from the dispensers is recycled via Northwood’s supply chain partners and made into new Northwood products – all helping to divert more plastic from landfill.
Joel added: “We are committed to the circular economy, which is all about minimising waste, increasing recycling and preserving the earth’s resources. It’s important for us as a business to prioritise the re-use of materials, prevent the overextraction of natural resources and reduce the number of useable materials that end up in landfill. We’re really proud that our customers think the same and we’re confident that this latest initiative will prove really popular.”
