Full circularity: KeyKeg, First Mile and OneCircle pilot circular economy scheme in London

14 Dec 2018 --- First Mile, Lightweight Containers and OneCircle have joined forces to create a circular economy scheme that recycles plastic kegs and turns them into new, reusable kegs. The program has been launched as a pilot scheme in London where First Mile collects used KeyKegs from bars and delivers them to plastic recycling specialists OneCircle, where they are then processed and turned back into KeyKegs – a circular economy product.

Used plastic kegs often end up in landfills, adding to the plastic waste problem. KeyKegs make up over 90 percent of plastic kegs in the UK, so once the scheme is in effect, the company believes it could potentially reduce the number of plastic kegs that end up in landfills significantly.

Dutch company Lightweight Containers is the producer of KeyKeg and UniKeg. Along with its customers – bars and beverage distributors – Lightweight Containers is trying to build a community eager to collect and prepare the kegs for processing. With this in mind, the company has founded OneCircle which is responsible for recycling and transporting KeyKegs.

“We estimate that more than 500 thousand KeyKegs end up in London every year and it is great that we can now use them as raw materials again. It meets a huge need,” says Joe Allen, Chief Commercial Officer of First Mile, a carbon-neutral waste processing company, working for more than 25,000 companies in London.

“Many bars have heard that we are going to process KeyKegs and have spontaneously saved them up. It is clear to them that a lot of plastic ends up in landfills and they want to prevent that from happening. The time has come to work together with packaging producers on closed loops, and KeyKeg is leading the way,” he adds.

OneCircle says it has set out to build a nationwide collection network in England. Network members will collect and crush the KeyKegs into bales. OneCircle, in turn, will collect and transport them to the processing plant. The company transports roughly 12,000 Keykegs per truckload. 

“We're aiming to reuse the raw materials worldwide. Ideally, this would be to make the next KeyKegs, but we want to minimize our ecological footprint, so it may be more sustainable in some situations to make them into other high-quality recycled products,” says Annemieke Hartman, Senior Business Creator for OneCircle. 

“We can recycle our kegs now because years ago we designed the KeyKeg & UniKeg with circularity in mind. We have developed various collection models and recycling methods and are supporting circular solutions around the globe. We work together with brewers, beverage distributors and innovative waste companies such as First Mile and GroenCollect. We have developed tools that allow our supply chain to separate the valuable materials and are actively looking for people and companies to join our fast-growing community,” Hartman adds.

Plastic waste has been a challenge for the recycling industry in Europe. Only a small percentage of the 250 types of existing plastic types can be recycled and the better part of it is used once and discarded. KeyKeg consists of 81 percent PP and PET, two types of plastics that can be reused as a circular raw material. Each KeyKeg already consists of 30 percent recycled material and this share is expected to increase further in 2019 to 40 percent, according to the company.

Lightweight Containers’ kegs are innovative in that they are made from lightweight plastic, as opposed to steel or wood, thereby reducing CO2 emissions and costs during travel. They are also almost entirely circular: old kegs become new kegs. Additionally, the company recently launched two new additions: A non-alcoholic fitting and a manual dispensing unit for “at-home use,” at BrauBeviale, in Nuremberg, Germany.