Wybone win tender for “Recycling on the Go” for Glasgow City Council

The Problem:

Since 2009 Glasgow City Council has been working on its 'Waste Strategy' for the city centre and surrounding areas. This includes providing more recycling containers within the city centre whilst also leading a 'Clean Glasgow Campaign' with the goal of making Glasgow cleaner.

In 2012, with funding from Zero Waste Scotland, Glasgow City Council wanted to expand the 'Recycling on the go' facilities by installing 180 additional recycling units into the city centre and 6 parks around Glasgow. Glasgow were keen to improve the public awareness of the existing 'Recycling on the go' scheme whilst also boosting the recycling rates in some of the city's busiest areas.

Glasgow were using split containers but were experiencing some cross contamination so wanted the new units to be solely for the collection of recyclables to eliminate this problem. The aesthetics and size of the new units were really important to GCC – a unit with the correct capacity and the right look were required so they could be placed in busy, high-visibility city centre locations.

With all these factors in mind, Glasgow City Council tendered for these units...

The Solution:

Wybone came out on top and won the tender to supply the 180 units to the Council with their MLB/120 recycling unit, tailored specifically to meet the requirements of the tender.

The recycling units featured 'Recycle for Scotland' artwork depicting the waste streams accepted, with a matching key-hole aperture to discourage miss-use and cross contamination. Glasgow already collected the same waste streams from households in a blue wheelie bin, so the new on-street recycling units were manufactured in the same colour to make them instantly recognisable to the public and clearly set them apart from black litter bins.

To make siting the bins easy and as quick as possible Wybone provided a concrete base fitted inside each recycling unit, allowing them to be sited with no ground fixing required and it also meant the bins could be re-sited at a later date if needed.

Wybone are able to make changes to designs to suit their customers' needs due to their in-house design and manufacturing capabilities. The South Yorkshire based company operates from a 50,000sq foot manufacturing plant, utilising the latest technologies and machinery. Having an in-house design team and manufacturing their products on-site means Wybone can react and adapt to requests and provide unique solutions.

The Result:

Glasgow City Council were thrilled with thrilled with the results when the products arrived. The recycling units were launched on the 18th June, coinciding perfectly with 'Recycling Week' and raising the profile and awareness of the scheme.

"By increasing the number of 'recycling on the go bins' within the city centre and introducing the bins within parks, Glasgow City Council is providing further opportunities for residents to recycle while away from the home. This will hopefully increase awareness of the Councils recycling services and assist the Council in diverting more material away from landfill"
Scott Armstrong, Recycling Strategy Manager for Glasgow City Council.