WDS Group is partnering with hospitality businesses across Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire, North Wales and Yorkshire to make a positive environmental impact. For almost 14 years, the Bury-based beer, wine and spirits wholesaler and distributor has been minimising its carbon footprint, operating a zero-landfill model and fully recycling all its trade waste. WDS Group now supports the beverage industry across the region to be more sustainable. During its deliveries to pubs, bars, cafés and restaurants, WDS Group collects empty KeyKegs that may otherwise end up as landfill.
KeyKegs are sustainable, designed-for-circularity beer, wine and other beverage Kegs produced by OneCircle; once empty, they can be processed to recover the actual raw materials used to produce new KeyKegs. WDS Group joined OneCircle's Return Partner Network in early 2019 and has already collected 65 tons of empty Kegs for recycling. During last summer alone, it collected 10,000 empty KeyKegs.
An environmentally conscious hospitality industry is creating a buoyant market for sustainable waste-management solutions. From Sheffield to Stoke, Lancaster to York, and everywhere in between, a steady stream of businesses approach WDS Group to return all their empty KeyKegs to the circular economy, helping protect the environment. As more empty Kegs are collected, the amount of circular material in each new KeyKeg will steadily increase, conserving precious natural resources.
Manchester’s Reserve Wines imports world-class wine sustainably, direct from wineries in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Shipped in lightweight KeyKeg to reduce the environmental impact, the fresh wines are served in Reserve Wines’ bars and decanted into reusable bottles in its shops. WDS Group collects up to 100 empty KeyKegs per month from Reserve Wines.
Nic Rezzouk, Buyer, Reserve Wines: “With help from WDS Group we are able to make closed-loop recycling a success — we could not have achieved it alone. Our future focus is wine on tap, so with WDS Group and KeyKeg we can serve high-quality, delicious-tasting wines and be sustainable.”
Salford’s First Chop Brewing recognised a demand for the highest quality, locally produced beer that reaches local consumers fresh, in a sustainable way — and leaves no lasting negative environmental impact. It now packages many of its most popular beers in KeyKeg. WDS Group not only distributes First Chop beers around the region, but also collects the empty KeyKegs afterwards.
Rik Garner, Founder, First Chop Brewing: “Sustainably distributing our beer as fresh as possible is most important. WDS Group and KeyKeg help us do that. We are also pleased to be part of WDS Group’s closed-loop recycling process.”
WDS Group crush and bundle the empty KeyKegs for OneCircle to collect. OneCircle then shreds, separates and sorts the different plastics on an automatic recycling line to recover the raw materials. As much recycled material as possible is used to produce new KeyKeg parts, while the remainder is recycled for other uses.
Sam Evans, Sales Director, WDS Group: "We're happy to be part of KeyKeg closed-loop recycling, helping pubs, bars and restaurants return their empty Kegs for recovery of the materials used to make new Kegs. At WDS Group we want to continue collecting and recycling as many empty KeyKegs as we can to make a greater positive environmental impact in the region."