Every year, the UK throws away circa 3 million end-of-life hard hats. These are normally just thrown into general (plastic) waste where, because of the way recycling systems work, the chance of them being recycled back into new plastics is minimal. The National Hard Hat Recycling Scheme changes all of that. Circularity Direct are proud Operator-Partners of the scheme.
From packaging plastics to construction hard hats, Circularity Direct design, build and operate bespoke recycling solutions to help organisations realise a more sustainable plastics strategy.
Whether advising on how to recycle complex plastic waste-streams, through to designing, building and operating complete end-of-life take-back schemes, we help organisations meet the challenge
From packaging plastics to construction hard hats, Circularity Direct design, build and operate bespoke recycling solutions to help organisations realise a more sustainable plastics strategy.
Whether advising on how to recycle complex plastic waste-streams, through to designing, building and operating complete end-of-life take-back schemes, we help organisations meet the challenge
Simply use the online ordering system on our website.
Here we’ll ask you to enter a few details, then pay the recycling fee (£2 per hat) and the shipping fee. Once you have done this you will automatically receive an order confirmation email, together with a payment receipt and VAT invoice.
Put your hats into a box for shipping (any cardboard box will do) but don’t tape it shut just yet.
You will also receive, by email, an important document from us that needs to go inside the box. This document has a unique barcode that allows us to link the box and hats back to you. Please print this document out and place inside the box. Once done, you can now tape the box shut.
You will also receive an address label from us. Please print this out too and affix the label to the outside of the box.
That’s it. Now sit back….we’ll do the rest.
The hats will be collected from you by our logistics partner (Royal Mail / Parcelforce), and be delivered into our recycling centre. Here the hats will be destroyed and the plastics recycled.
Once that’s done. we’ll send you a certificate of destruction, and a Waste Transfer Note for your compliance records. It’s that easy!
When the hats arrive at our recycling centre, the box is opened and the contents are checked and approved. The unique barcode (on the document we sent you to put inside the box) is scanned, and a receipt record generated.
The hats are then manually disassembled into their constituent parts, with the plastics sorted by polymer type and by colour.
Next, the plastic pieces of the hats are granulated into 10mm fragments, before being put through an extrusion, melt-filtration, and pelletization process. In this way the plastics are all turned back into new, clean polymer pellets. These pellets are the universal raw-material format for all plastic item manufacturing.
At the moment the polymer does not go back in to the manufacture of new hats, it goes into other UK manufacturing applications. However we are already working with some of our hat manufacturing partners, and hope that during 2025 we will be able to go fully circular and start sending this material back in new hat manufacture. Watch this space!
Yes. Absolutely.
As soon as your order is confirmed and paid, you will automatically receive an invoice and payment receipt by email. Therefore it is really important that you enter your email address correctly during the order process. This email address will also be where we send you an important document to place inside the box, an address label to affix to the box, the Waste Transfer Note, and the certificate of destruction.
Yes.
When your hats arrive at our recycling centre, the box will be scanned and the contents checked.
The hats will then enter the recycling process. At this point a Waste Transfer Note and a certificate of destruction will be automatically generated and emailed to you.
Yes, absolutely.
We are genuinely really keen to hear from our customers.
If you have any questions, or want to share some feedback, or just want to understand more about plastics recycling, then please feel free to either call 0330 133 9170, or email us: at info@circularity.direct
Sometimes we have customers who want to send in a large number of hats in one go….for example if going through a project closure or a company re-branding.
If you have a large number of hats to send, that’s no problem. But please do call us first, as it may well be the case that we can help you to optimise that process.
In some cases, customers may want to have a single, central account that multiple users within their organisation can access. This is something we can offer. Please call us to discuss: 0330 133 9170
Company Number: 15730945
VAT Number: 480119505