Recycling? LNER Has It Sorted

LNER can reveal it’s now sorting up to 100 kilograms of waste a day – as it maintains its position of sending zero waste to landfill. 

In advance of Global Recycling Day (Monday 18 March), LNER is proud to have reduced its total waste by a third over the past five years.. Tea and coffee cups, sandwich and snack wrappers, drinks cans and crisp packets are collected by dedicated cleaning teams. Each piece of rubbish is then sorted by hand, ensuring it is recycled responsibly. Since LNER set up its first coffee cup recycling scheme in 2020, 2,300 kilograms of tea and coffee cups, the equivalent weight of a white rhino, have avoided landfill. 

It isn’t just rubbish collected onboard LNER trains that gets sifted and sorted. Waste from LNER stations and offices is also responsibly recycled. 

Olivia Mouter, Environmental Partnerships Manager at LNER, said: “As a train company which operates more than 50,000 services and covers over 3,500 million miles a year, we are acutely aware of both the local and global impact we have. We put our people, places and planet at the heart of everything we do. 

“It’s widely recognised that the train is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to travel, generating much less carbon than an equivalent car journey, but that’s not enough for us. We look to use resources in ways that minimise waste and promote reuse and recycling. Our customers play a key part too and we thank them for their consideration and support.” 

LNER’s three waste sorting hubs are based at Newcastle, Doncaster and Peterborough stations. In addition, LNER is looking to introduce vape pen recycling and has already established an effective uniform recycling process for used or unwanted items.