NETWORK Rail is seeing the success of a partnership with The Green Block aimed at boosting station recycling rates to 95% and diverting 100% of waste from landfill.
The rail organisation has been trialling The Green Block’s patented and innovative mobile segregation unit (MSU), which manually segregates waste on site into its recyclable commodities whilst capturing accurate and digital data – once rubbish from trains, public bins and retailers in stations has been collected.
The trial MSU is based at London Victoria station and has enabled Network Rail to recycle over 7,000 tonnes of waste from the station since the trial began. Over a 12-month period, this recycling technology is expected to reduce Network Rail’s carbon footprint at London Victoria by 121 tonnes – the equivalent weight of a blue whale.
The success of the trial has seen two further MSUs installed at London Bridge and London Waterloo stations which will recycle waste from across Network Rail’s London managed stations. It is estimated 1,500 coffee cups are segregated, baled, and recycled per day across these three stations alone. This is approximately 42,000 coffee cups every four weeks.
Since December 2023, the increased recycling rates has also generated Network Rail £10,000, money earnt from recycled waste from across its London managed stations which is being reinvested back into the railway. It has also created 18 local and sustainable jobs for the local community.
During National Recycling Week (14-18 October), Network Rail has rolled out 60 new 1,100 litre bins at London Victoria station which all have a QR code for passengers to follow the journey of their coffee cup as it is recycled. These new bins also provide a potential industry-first sponsorship opportunity to create a commercial benefit that both increases revenue for the railway and reduces the cost of managing waste to the taxpayer.
Working closely with train operators and retailers, all waste producers have coded bins or bags so all rubbish and recycling is weighed and tracked in real time using proprietary software called Plaza, so the industry knows exactly how much waste is being generated, who is producing it and exactly where it ends up.
From April 2025, it will be mandatory for all organisations to digitally track and keep real-time records of where the waste comes from and how and when it is disposed. This initiative means Network Rail is compliant five years early.
Karin Skelton, Network Rail’s sustainability programme manager, said, “We run almost a third of Britain’s rail services in the southern region – that’s 700 million passenger journeys every year, each one with their own individual story, each one relying on us.
“We’ve got a fantastic opportunity to do our job in a way that minimises our impact on the environment, and we’re absolutely committed to being cleaner, greener and more socially responsible.
“We produce thousands of tonnes of waste every year at our big London stations, so The Green Block partnership means we’ve been able to significantly improve our recycling rates to over 90%. But we’re committed to doing even more and are aiming to reach 95%, as well as eradicating the waste we send to landfill. The best thing about this project is that our passengers don’t need to change a thing.”
Josh Katz, general manager of the MSU division at The Green Block (TGB), added, “At TGB we are committed to delivering safe and sustainable solutions. We are delighted to be supporting Network Rail in their sustainability journey, with the introduction of the globally-recognised mobile segregation unit and its real-time data tracking through the Plaza system, leading the way within the transportation industry.
