Closing the circle on sustainable washrooms

WITH COP 28 setting the temperature target at 1.5°C, it has never been more important for businesses to embrace more ambitious, environmentally responsible practices to minimise the impact on our planet. 

The washroom is one area where a few tweaks can help businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and appeal to more environmentally-conscious consumers. From choosing sustainable products and minimising waste to working with responsible suppliers, washroom hygiene strategies can add up to significant change.

Why circular?

A circular economy is a closed-loop system aimed at eliminating waste and preserving the earth’s resources. It prioritises the re-use of materials, prevents the over extraction of natural resources and reduces the number of useable materials that end up in landfill. It’s a resilient system that’s good for people, business and the environment.

When it comes to washrooms, businesses can adopt this approach by using products that are part of the circular economy.

So, for example, instead of disposing of used paper hand towels from washrooms, these towels can be collected separately and recycled to make new material for the production of new hygiene paper. As well as significantly reducing waste, using this type of paper towel also minimises the need for fresh pulp fibre.

Paper matters

Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, accounting for four percent of all the world's energy use, so reducing the amount of virgin pulp used can make a significant reduction in de-forestation and energy usage. 

Northwood Hygiene is committed to achieving zero waste in landfills and our Green Loop closed loop recycling programme has been further expanded to recycle hand towels and part-used rolls. Customers are provided with special recycling bins, which collect the paper waste in the washroom. The paper is then collected and sorted and returned to our paper mills where it will be recycled into future washroom hygiene products.

As a true UK manufacturer with a domestic supply chain, Northwood is proud to now manufacture more than 95% of its paper products in the UK. We are part of the full circle economy, which means that we are involved throughout the supply chain - raw material supply, manufacturing, end user product converting, storage and transportation. 

By minimising the import of products from overseas and not transporting raw materials or products unnecessarily in the UK, we are also able to significantly reduce the number of miles goods must travel, which means our products are more sustainable.

Plastic reduction

Our Green Loop service has attracted more than 150 customers and was recently boosted with a dispenser recycling initiative. Under this scheme, we remove old soap and paper dispensers from customer premises and recycle them when customers sign up for our dispensers. 

The plastic recovered from the dispensers will then be recycled into pellets, which will be used to make children’s toys, garden furniture and playground flooring - all helping to divert more plastic from landfill. 

It’s such an easy way for washroom providers to do the right thing and it’s so much better for the plastic to be turned into raw materials that can then be used to create new products.  

It takes up to 500 years for plastic to fully decompose and we use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago - that’s why cutting our use of plastic and recycling it wherever possible are essential steps to make. 

For businesses working towards ambitious sustainability goals, considering a circular economy strategy and using less virgin fibre material hygiene papers in the washroom is a great way to help the environment by reducing waste, cutting down on pollution and preserving our finite resources. 

And it makes a great contribution to Economic Social Governance (ESG), which is becoming increasingly more important for environmentally aware end users.

Small changes can add up to a big difference.

Joel Quick is sustainability manager at Northwood Hygiene Products

For more information, visit www.northwood.co.uk