Organisation
National Theatre
Theme
Waste, consumption & food
Start Date
Jul 2022
Goals
Consumption, Waste
The National Theatre’s waste company is committed to zero-to-landfill, but they have collaborated closely to boost recycling rates.
They now manage over 20 waste streams and continue to explore ways to divert as much material as possible from general waste. Through departmental waste walkarounds and waste composition audits, they have gained valuable insights into how their bins are used, helping them identify areas for improvement.
The Challenge
The National Theatre has a complex set of waste streams, including waste from its front-of-house operations and visitors, and backstage operations from building and maintaining stages and sets. Following the COVID pandemic, the National Theatre's recycling rate was particularly low, so they were keen to increase it. This meant diverting as much material as possible from general waste into recycling streams. The first step was to determine why recyclable materials were not being separated as effectively as possible and if they were missing any opportunities for further recycling.
Zero to Landfill
Their waste company, Recorra, has a zero-to-landfill policy. General waste is instead incinerated, with the energy produced during this process fed back into the national grid. While this method of waste management is generally considered better than landfill due to its lower total emissions and decreased physical pollution, Recorra and the National Theatre realise that it’s in no way a perfect solution. This is why they have focused on getting as many materials out of general waste as possible by increasing their range of recycling streams.
This initiative forms part of the National Theatre’s waste reduction plan, which sees them working towards the waste hierarchy principles, prioritising reduction and reuse, then recycling, with energy recovery as a last resort. This sits within their wider carbon reduction plan and commitment to the Theatre Green Book (opens in a new window) standards. The National Theatre recognises Lambeth’s target to “Increase recycling rates to achieve a 65% municipal waste recycling rate by 2030” and acknowledges its part in helping the borough achieve this target. They aim to reach 65% ahead of schedule, in 2026/2027.
Action Taken
As a theatre, some of its materials can be quite niche and may need a specific stream. The initial step was to carry out departmental waste walkarounds, which involved speaking to teams across the organisation and looking into their bins. They needed to understand what materials were going into the general waste that could be recycled and whether these materials needed an additional stream.
Audits were carried out in both back-of-house and front-of-house spaces, allowing the theatre to understand how staff and customers use their bins.
The findings were then shared with their waste company, which provided several new waste streams, such as textiles and soft plastics. They now recycle almost 1.5 tonnes of soft plastic each year.
In cases where materials could not be easily or efficiently recycled, they tried to avoid using them. For example, polystyrene, which is mostly air, has transport emissions that outweigh the emissions saved from recycling it. Therefore, it’s not considered a sustainable option to recycle, and instead, they try to avoid using the product altogether.
Following this initial process, formal waste audits were carried out with the waste company. To achieve this, in-house teams collected bin bags from designated areas of their buildings over several days; the waste company then emptied the bags, separated, and weighed each material type. The results of these audits provided further insights into how their bins were being used and allowed them to respond accordingly, identifying areas for improvement.
The Results
As a result of the audits, the theatre introduced waste management training for staff, especially for teams most involved with handling waste, such as Housekeeping and Catering. Signage around waste collection points was updated to raise awareness of the most misunderstood or problematic materials; for example, tissues cannot be recycled because the paper’s fibres are too short, resulting in low-quality pulp in the recycling process.
New recycling bins were placed in the foyer after the front-of-house audit revealed that the Food and Drink supplier had reintroduced glass into their offerings, increasing the weight of the general waste stream. The new bins separated the glass from general waste, significantly reducing the overall waste weights and boosting the recycling rate for glass. Waste audits are conducted periodically across the sites to support ongoing improvements.
Learnings from National Theatre
It is important to note that adding more waste streams can be the more expensive route to increasing recycling rates, as disposal costs for general waste are usually much lower than for more specialised recycling streams.
To address this, in addition to introducing new streams, the organisation also aims to optimise the efficiency of collections. For example, soft plastics, which used to be collected in bin bags, are now compacted into bales on-site. This change requires less space in the waste collection van, reducing both costs and emissions related to waste transport.
The theatre now effectively recycles through over 20 waste streams, and this achievement was recognised when the theatre and Recorra, their waste contractor, received a bronze award at the 2024 Global Good Awards in the Waste Reduction and Minimisation category for their post-COVID project to increase recycling rates and reduce waste.
The National Theatre is proud that its recycling rate has improved, but it is aware that it still needs to reduce its overall waste tonnage. One particular challenge is public realm waste; despite efforts to improve signage and stream availability, the public often remains confused about what can be recycled. Many visitors to the South Bank come from across the UK and abroad, and their understanding of waste streams can vary and does not always align with that of the organisation.
