Northern gets serious about recycling

Northern, which runs services through Ilkeston Railway Station has begun segregating waste products across its operations into 33 different specialist categories.

The train operator – which has 467 managed stations on its network, not including Ilkeston, and five ‘TrainCare Centre’ depots across the region and has support staff in multiple office locations – already re-uses or re-cycles 70% of all waste generated by its operations.

As well as conventional recycling of materials such as paper, card, plastic, glass and metals, a total of 33 categories cover areas such as mechanical elements related to train engines, fluids and other parts including various types of battery, e-cigarettes and waste electrical and electronic equipment, plus coffee cups and LED tubes.

Mike Roe, safety and environment director at Northern, said: “Eliminating waste is always our primary objective – but when that’s not possible, we aim to re-use or recycle as much as we can.

“The 33 different recycling strands now in-use throughout our business allows everyone across our near 7,000-strong workforce to play their part in support of our environmental mission.”

In 2022-23, Northern processed 6,458 tonnes of waste. Of that, 2,670 tonnes were recycled, 1,996 tonnes were re-used, 1,660 tonnes were incinerated (generating energy from waste) and just 132 tonnes went to landfill.