Recycling Lives has recorded significant sales growth after enjoying its biggest year yet.
The recycling and waste management business has reported a near 50% rise in sales to more than £46million, as it publishes its annual accounts this week.
It enjoyed a significant rise in both sales and EBITDA in 2016/17, rising by 47% and 44% respectively in the reporting period.
Total sales of £46,452,000 were enjoyed in part after a number of major contract wins for the recycling business, including with Sellafield Ltd and Speedy Hire, as well as the acquisition of a car salvage business and opening five new sites nationally throughout 2016/17.
Recycling Lives Group managing director William Fletcher said: “This profitable growth is allowing us to significantly expand our social footprint and offer more opportunities as the charity’s growth follows the business’s growth. This growth has allowed us to create many more jobs – we have grown our staff team by 23% in the last year.
“Our impressive growth, coupled with the incredible social impact created by our charitable programmes, shows that Recycling Lives is here for good.”
Recycling Lives has a number of associated charity and social ventures which are directly supported and sustained by its business operations. These – comprising an offender rehabilitation programme in prisons, a residential charity for homeless men, and a food redistribution programme to reduce food waste and tackle food poverty – each enjoyed their own growth in 2016/17. The prisons programme, known as HMP Academies, expanded into new prisons; the residential charity established new working relationships with national employers; and the Food Redistribution Centre expanded its offer into Cumbria.
Each of these supports the business’ unique offer to clients of achieving tangible social value relative to their spend with the business. For every contract the recycling firm wins, it creates social impact through job creation, offender rehabilitation, homeless services and food redistribution, as part of its commitment to creating social value equal to or greater than 10% of annual sales.
In its business operations, Recycling Lives now has nine sites nationwide; four in its home county of Lancashire, and additional sites across Greater Manchester, Merseyside, the Midlands, Cumbria and Kent.
It also acquired car salvage and auction business RAW2K in summer 2017, adding to its vertically integrated business model and capabilities in managing all aspects of the waste and recycling process.
The business processes scrap metal, scrap cars, waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) at its state-of-the-art Recycling Park in Preston to produce high grade recycled materials ready for reuse.
