Who Manages Our Waste - Biffa

Who Manages Our Waste?

Biffa

Biffa is one of the UK’s leading waste management and recycling companies. It was founded over 100 years ago, and was named after its founder, Richard Biffa.

The business was originally a haulage company which provided services to take coal to London to fire power stations. Today, their business is waste management and recycling.

They have over 190 sites across the country, and the provide waste management and recycling services to over 2.4 million households and collect over 4 million bins per week.

Company operations

Industrial & Commercial

The company provide waste management and recycling services to over 75,000 business customers across a range of business sectors, including manufacturing, retail, and hospitality. They collect over 2 million tonnes of waste from a total of 13 million bins.

Their services cover over 95% of UK postcodes, and the business operates according to a regional model, so services can be tailored for the businesses in a particular region.

They provide services to businesses of all sizes; from small businesses with 1 bin to large businesses who require complex and tailored waste management solutions.

Household Waste

Biffa’s household waste division is a service provider for 40 local authorities across the UK, and they provide household waste and recycling collections, street cleansing and other services. The company is the waste management service provider for 4 of the top 10 best performing local authorities in England for waste management and recycling.

The company’s fleet of 1400 vehicles collects waste from over 2 million households and empties 4.1 million bins.

Resource Recovery & Treatment

Their Resource, Recovery and Treatment division processes and treats residual and recyclable materials. The division is split into 3 key areas:

Recycling

They have 2 automated Material Recycling Facilities (MRF) which handle mixed recyclables, near London and Birmingham. The facilities process 400,000 tonnes of recycling each year, which is the same amount of household waste generated by 4 million people.

Hazardous Waste

Biffa operates 7 hazardous waste transfer stations and has a fleet of 50 vehicles providing collection, treatment and disposal services.

Energy

The company’s energy division operates energy from waste facilities across the UK, which create sustainable energy from processing waste.

They use 3 technologies to extract energy from waste:

Landfill gas

Biffa developed the process of landfill gas capture and power generation over 25 years ago. The process involves extracting methane from landfill sites to use in energy production.

Anaerobic digestion

They use anaerobic digestion to process food waste and they process 300,000 tonnes per year.

Mechanical and biological treatment

The company operates 2 mixed waste separation plants in Leicester and West Sussex, which recover recyclable materials and prepare the leftover waste to be used for energy recovery.

The Biffa Award

The Biffa Award programme was established in 1997, and it has awarded grants of more than £140 million to more than 3,000 projects across the UK. The award aims to support projects that will bring about environmental benefits, and improve the quality of life of people and their communities.

Almost 500,000 hectares of land have been improved with Biffa funds for biodiversity, and 265,000 people have benefitted from work done by the funded projects.