Municipal operates waste treatment facilities for UK city and county councils. The waste treatment facilities are part of long-term contracts between Renewi and the relevant municipality, which usually last twenty-five years. These contracts are primarily intended to divert waste from landfill sites in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. Various technologies are used, such as mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) and installations for material recycling (MRF).

Each contract delivers guaranteed volumes on agreed terms, usually with some form of price indexation. However, the contracts are not always linked to the variable costs of the disposal of processed offtake, and changes in this market can lead to pressure on margins. To mitigate this, purchase contracts are mainly laid down in long-term contracts.

Renewi has six municipal contracts in the UK, using various technologies. These are contracts with the municipalities of Argyll and Bute, Wakefield, Cumbria, Barnsley Doncaster and Rotherham (BDR), Derby, Elstow and East London (ELWA).

We aim to improve recycling rates and divert waste from landfill in all our contracts in the UK. We currently recycle 40% of the unsorted "black bag" waste we process, which equates to almost one million tonnes.

Coolrec (Specialities)

Coolrec is an important player in the circular economy when it comes to the processing of discarded electrical appliances and electronic products. Through an international network of four sites spread across the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Coolrec recovers plastics and ferrous and non-ferrous metals from WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) and converts them into secondary raw materials. Coolrec works closely with innovative industrial producers of consumer products.

Coolrec processes more than 90,000 tons of e-waste every year. Coolrec is the market leader in the Benelux in the recycling of refrigerators (NL: 60%, BE: 100%, FR: 10%). In the field of SDA (Small Domestic Appliances), Coolrec has a smaller market share (NL: 5%, BE: 20%, FR: 3%).

The materials we recover through our recycling activities continue into our ecosystem of solutions. They become secondary raw materials, which we upcycle ourselves, through partnerships with innovation-oriented companies or offer for sale to producers who value circularity as much as we do.

Maltha (Specialities) 

Maltha is a leading recycler of hollow and flat glass waste and the supplier of clean glass cullet as a high-quality raw material for the glass and glass wool industry. Glass is endlessly recyclable without loss of quality: a good example of the circular economy.

With more than 250 colleagues, Maltha processes more than a million tons of glass waste annually, originating from companies and municipalities. If you put this amount of wine bottles in a row neck to bottom, you can go around the world twice!

For the collection of the glass, Maltha works closely with collection companies and recycling initiatives throughout Europe. The collected glass is cleaned in a smart way at Maltha and processed into various types of glass shards. This is done entirely according to the wishes of our customers in the glass and glass wool industry. For example, beer bottles can already consist of more than 80% recycled glass.

Maltha can reach the highest degree of purity (quality). We have more than twenty types of glass shards in our range as standard, separated by quality, color and size, for example.

Maltha was founded in Schiedam in the Netherlands in 1921. So we have more than a hundred years of experience in the field of glass, recycling glass and reusing glass. Our ambition is to enable new glass packaging made from 100% recycled glass. We also want to convert all incoming raw glass into secondary raw materials.

One-third of Maltha is owned by Owens-Illinois, the world leader in glass packaging. With seven sites spread across the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Portugal, Maltha is one of the largest recyclers of glass waste in Europe.