London Victoria, the second busiest railway station in Britain, has started a trial to recycle 85% of its waste.

The Network Rail managed station is working with train operators and The Green Block to take the number one spot for recycling on the UK’s rail network.

A unit has been set up at the station to take all the contaminated rubbish from the site and segregate it, wash it, compact it, bale it and store it ready for collection.

Nicole Cohen-Wray, stations director for Network Rail Southern region, said: “We’re really excited about this trial and this is a big opportunity to reduce our environmental footprint. All scheduled trains that use our station are electric, but we know it’s not enough just to provide environmentally-friendly transport – that would be too easy! We’re doing everything we can with our colleagues at Southeastern and GTR to make our station sustainable, and a green ambassador for the railway.”

Adam Williams, co-founder and head of transformation for The Green Block, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be supporting Network Rail in this innovative management of waste trial. The project has been planned for many months and seeing the project rolled out at one of the largest transportation hubs within the UK, is a fantastic achievement. Together we are going to change the culture and behaviours towards the management and recycling of waste.”

An example of the ‘journey’ the waster will take at London Victoria can be seen below:

• A plastic bottle is purchased from a retail store
• The plastic bottle is disposed of in a bin.
• Bins are emptied and transferred to the Mobile Segregation Unit (MSU) for manual segregation.
• The plastic bottle is cleaned, baled, weighed and secured in preparation for collection.
• Plastic waste bales are collected and transported to a recycling partner.
• The plastic is then shredded, washed, melted and reshaped.
• The used plastic bottle is once again a plastic bottle.

The trial began on Sunday, 28 June, and continues until December.

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