Northern Trains announced their collaboration with recycling specialists Avena in 2023, so that it’s ‘end of life’ uniforms could be recycled into ‘further life’ products.
Twelve months on, they have recycled 10,390kg of old uniforms and saved over 4,000kg of carbon emissions.
Alex Fay, an Energy and Environment delivery manager at Northern Trains who worked on the project, said:
“We are definitely happy with the Avena process.
“Over ten tonnes of waste that would have been otherwise ended up in incineration or landfill.
“It is great to know that this waste has now, instead, been recycled.”
This recycling initiative comes after the government set targets to increase Northern’s recycling rate to 70%.
Mr Fay said that the environmental team are always looking at what materials are being thrown into general waste that can be recycled.
Tens of thousands of PPE and uniform are distributed to colleagues, so uniforms were a ‘sizeable chunk’ of waste that needed to be addressed.
The ‘end of life’ uniforms have been collected from 25 depots and train crew centres across the Northern network on a regular basis over the last year.
The items that featured the Northern logo were taken away and shredded by Avena, a specialist in brand security throughout processes including textile shredding, clothing destruction and textile recycling.
The destruction of the branded uniforms was to avoid items being used to impersonate rail workers and gain access to restricted areas of depots and stations.
Elliot Garner, a spokesperson for Avena, said: “Avena takes pride in securely recycling all Northern uniform in the most effective way possible, guaranteeing the recycling of all items collected resulting in complete avoidance from landfill.
“The implementation of SecureBrand across 25 Northern sites ensures branded uniform is captured, heavily reducing the risk of uniform breaches and impersonation attempts.
“We look forward to continuing securing the future of Northern for years to come.”
Northern Trains are currently focused on recycling uniforms from train crew and engineering staff, but are looking to expand to train station workers themselves, specifically retail staff.
The most challenging progression to this scheme that they are looking to change is recycling customer waste.
The train operator is facing logistical challenges with expanding their sustainability project because of so many locations.
Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.