Reverse Vending Machine at Brakes Group

Brakes believes in acting today to protect tomorrow and has an active Corporate Social Responsibility programme covering product, planet and people. Across these focus areas, our activities ensure that we support every community we engage with, source our products responsibly and protect the natural resources of the planet. On 30th November, the EcoVend Reverse Vending Machine was installed into Brakes Head Office in Ashford to encourage those who use plastic, to be responsible for how they dispose it. Users can get an instant reward of 5p off their next purchase at their restaurant. This motivates repeated use and further improving recycling rates.

Originally trialled at the Brakes Summer Food Festival, hosted at their offices in Covent Garden, the three day event turned out to be a recycling success with over £100 donated towards the charity “Meals and More”. Meals & More is a nationwide charitable programme, driven by Brakes and businesses we work with, that supports holiday clubs for children in some of the most deprived areas of the UK.

By using the RVM, Brakes can support the cleanest loop when it comes to recycling their plastic bottles, with the machine containing sanitiser and ensuring that only plastic bottles are fed into the machine, Brakes can ensure that all this material can be recycled into more plastic bottles. Brakes are one of the first companies to implement a reverse vending machine within an office environment. By doing this, they can keep an eye on how well the EcoVend works within a controlled environment and help reduce the amount of waste dumped on the streets, oceans and landfills. This is a great step forward in removing plastics from our seas and preventing plastic pollution as well as supporting Brakes’ 2Zero20 Pledge in the initiative to become a plastic responsible company.

Through the use of creative problem solving, these machines have given people a reason to hold onto their old plastic bottles for extended periods of time. Then ensure they are disposed of correctly.