Bakers Basco calls on businesses to tackle unnecessary landfill and protect reusable assets as Zero Waste Week gets underway
London: As businesses and consumers across the UK mark Zero Waste Week, Bakers Basco is calling for greater recognition of an often-overlooked source of unnecessary waste: reusable assets being removed from circulation, unlawfully disposed of or destroyed long before the end of their working lives.
Zero Waste Week, which runs from 7–11 September 2026, encourages individuals, businesses and organisations to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill, preserve resources and play their part in the circular economy.
For Bakers Basco, which manages a pool of around five million reusable Omega baskets and 500,000 dollies used throughout the UK bakery supply chain, those principles have been at the heart of its operations for more than 20 years. Its equipment is specifically designed to be used repeatedly throughout its working life, reducing reliance on single-use alternatives and keeping valuable resources in circulation.
However, Bakers Basco continues to recover its equipment from unauthorised locations across the UK, with reusable baskets and dollies found abandoned, stockpiled, unlawfully repurposed and, in some cases, deliberately destroyed or sent into the waste stream.
Paul Empson, General Manager at Bakers Basco, said: “Zero Waste Week is a hugely valuable opportunity to make people stop and think about what we throw away, but preventing unnecessary waste has to be a responsibility we recognise every week of the year. For more than 20 years, we’ve been fighting to keep reusable bakery equipment in circulation and out of the waste stream. When a perfectly serviceable reusable asset is unlawfully removed, destroyed or sent to landfill, we’re not simply losing a piece of equipment. We’re wasting the raw materials, energy and resources that went into manufacturing it and potentially creating the need to manufacture a replacement.”
“Recycling is important, but the first question should always be whether something needs to become waste at all. If an asset can continue doing the job it was designed to do, keeping it in use is surely the better environmental outcome.”
Bakers Basco uses a combination of GPS tracking, intelligence gathering, investigations and legal enforcement to locate and recover missing equipment and return it to the bakery supply chain. The company believes greater awareness is needed among businesses handling reusable transit packaging and other third-party assets, particularly within the retail, wholesale, foodservice, recycling and waste sectors.
Empson added: “The circular economy isn’t just about designing new sustainable products. It’s about protecting the resources we already have and keeping them productive for as long as possible. Our message this Zero Waste Week is simple: before something is discarded, scrapped or sent to landfill, ask whether it actually belongs there. In the case of reusable equipment belonging to somebody else, the answer could very well be ‘no’.”