Valpak by Reconomy

The Reconomy group does not offer just one service. The company calls it “loops,” which are three connected service areas that make up a portfolio of specialist brands. The quickest way to figure out what Reconomy does and if it meets your business needs is to understand this structure.

There are three loops:

1. Recycle Loop is a service that helps consumers keep track of their garbage and resources using platforms, data tools, and professional guidance. The idea is to advance things up the waste hierarchy and get operations to the point where they don’t produce any garbage.
2. Comply Loop is a firm that helps other businesses satisfy environmental requirements including EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility), restrictions for packaging waste, WEEE, battery laws, and other environmental duties.
3. Re-use Loop is a worldwide network of technological tools that let people manage returns, mend things, and use them again. ReBound Returns is a brand that helps online stores deal with a lot of product returns from other countries.

The Reconomy group model is based on the idea that circularity is not just one thing but a whole system – any business that recycles garbage but doesn’t follow the rules can’t be circular. If a company follows EPR but sends all returned goods to the landfill, it has missed the point. The three-loop structure can work on all three dimensions at the same time or separately, depending on what the client needs.

The Reconomy group has more than 4,000 employees, serves more than 25,000 customers, and speaks more than 25 languages across these three loops. The group has made a number of strategic purchases in the past few years, such as Valpak, Prismm Environmental, Countrywide Waste Management, and AWS Nationwide. It has also aggressively expanded into North America, making seven purchases there in just over a year.

Reconomy UK Ltd: The Home Business is the main part of the group that provides services in the UK. It is the operational backbone of what most British businesses encounter when they engage with the company, whether they come through Reconomy Connect for waste management, through Valpak for packaging compliance, or through the group’s direct EPR advisory services.

Reconomy Ltd, the registered legal entity, has been around since the early 1990s. Companies House data shows that it is part of a corporate family of 63 companies. Reconomy Ltd’s long trading history gives clients confidence that they are working with an established, regulated entity rather than a newer market entrant. This is in line with the group’s growth strategy, which has been based on acquisitions since it moved beyond its Telford roots.

Reconomy UK Ltd works in all of the EPR categories that are important to UK producers. As part of economy UK’s domestic service model, each category is managed by a dedicated compliance team with country-specific expertise.

• Packaging EPR means following the UK Packaging and Packaging Waste rules, which include reporting data and being a member of a scheme.
• WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and it has to follow the UK WEEE regulations.
• Batteries must follow the UK Battery Regulations, which include registering and reporting.
• Construction and demolition waste is one of the group’s strongest areas because of its roots and Reconomy Connect’s focus on this sector.
• Management of soils and materials is a specialized service area that includes dealing with contaminated land, recovering aggregates, and reusing materials.

Clients use a portal infrastructure to manage their compliance data, which helps the UK operation.

Registered users of the Reconomy portal can keep track of their waste, access reporting templates, check their compliance status, and get in touch with the right account management team. For businesses that need to handle a lot of data across multiple sites, like those in retail, logistics, and construction, the portal is the main way to get in touch with them instead of calling or emailing them directly.

New users are onboarded to the reconomy portal as part of the initial setup process, with account managers guiding the first configuration.

Before you get in touch with the Reconomy team for the first time, you should know what’s in the resources section of the Reconomy site at reconomy.com/discover/resources/. It’s one of the more useful parts of the site.

The Reconomy site has a lot of useful resources, such as:

• Regulatory guides are easy-to-understand explanations of the UK’s and some of the EU’s most important markets’ EPR laws, WEEE obligations, battery rules, and packaging waste rules.
• Case studies are documented examples of how certain clients have used Reconomy services to lower their waste costs, meet regulations, or improve their circularity metrics.
• Regular updates on changes in the law, enforcement activity, and trends in the circular economy can be found in blog and news articles.
• Insights on circularity: a section just for businesses that want to learn more about the circular economy, with tools and frameworks for measuring circularity maturity.
• Webinars and events — past and future sessions on topics like compliance and sustainability strategy.

The site’s resources are especially useful for businesses that are still figuring out what their responsibilities are before hiring a service provider. Businesses can explore the full range of reconomy site resources without registering, which makes the initial research phase significantly easier. Reconomy gives enough information to have a knowledgeable first conversation, which sets it apart from compliance providers who put all of their important content behind a registration form.

The main office of Reconomy is in Telford, Shropshire. This is the group’s operational center, where most of the compliance, customer service, and operational staff work. Since the company started, Telford has been Reconomy’s home. The head office has grown a lot as the company has grown through acquisitions.

The Reconomy London office, located at 50–51 Wells Street, London W1T 3PP, is the group’s main office for corporate development, investor relations, and senior leadership. The group’s London presence shows that it is a business with international goals. It is the best address for formal business correspondence, partnership inquiries, and communications with investors.

Most of the time, client services are handled through the Telford operation or through the brand-specific teams (Valpak, Reconomy Connect, ReBound, and others) that have their own offices in the UK and around the world. Whether you are reaching out to the reconomy london office or the Telford hub, the same account management model applies across all brands.

For general questions, you can call Reconomy at 0800 988 5618. You can easily find this free phone number on the reconomy.com website. This line connects callers to the main switchboard, which then sends their questions to the right service or brand team.

The reconomy contact number varies depending on what you need:

• The 0800 line is the quickest way to get help with waste management and Reconomy Connect services.
• For EPR (Valpak) and packaging compliance, Valpak has its own dedicated phone number and account management team that you can reach through valpak.co.uk or the main Reconomy site.
• For returns management (ReBound), you can get in touch with them through rebound-returns.com.
• If you need help with EPR or international compliance, you can fill out the contact form on reconomy.com/contact-us/ to get in touch with the Comply Loop team.

As the company’s profile has grown and the circular economy has become a mainstream career path instead of a niche one, more and more people are interested in working in the circular economy. The group has jobs in many different fields, not just for environmental specialists. They also have jobs for data analysts, software developers, sales and account managers, operations coordinators, and people who work in HR and finance.

The group is still based in Telford, where Reconomy jobs are located. Most office jobs require hybrid working, which means that most of the time, employees work from home and at the office. Salaries for customer-facing coordinator roles at the team leader level usually fall between £29,000 and £31,000. On the other hand, senior commercial and technical jobs pay a lot more.

Reconomy.com/discover/careers/ has a careers page that lists all the open positions in all of the group’s brands and locations. There are often open positions for:

• Leaders of teams and customer service coordinators (Telford)
• Managers of business development for teams that work from home and in the same area
• Telford and hybrid data and compliance analysts
• The people who make Telford’s software and systems
• People and HR experts (Telford)
• Jobs in operations and logistics in different parts of the UK

One major difference between Reconomy jobs and jobs with regular waste contractors is that Reconomy jobs are based on circularity outcomes instead of disposal metrics. Anyone exploring reconomy careers will find that the application process is straightforward — most roles are listed at reconomy.com/discover/careers/ with direct apply options.

Part of how staff are judged is by how much waste they help keep out of landfills, how many clients they help follow the law, and how well they help the group reach its overall goals for sustainability. This framing is important for people who care about the environment and know how to run a business.

Employees say that the work environment is fast-paced, the culture is mostly friendly, and there are real opportunities to move between brands, regions, and fields within the group. Because the company is growing so quickly through acquisitions, new teams and functions are always being added. This is good for people who can handle change, but it can also mean that systems and processes aren’t always ready to go.

The group has put more and more money into reconomy social value as stakeholders’ expectations for corporate purpose have grown. The company’s Environment Action Plan, or REAP, lays out both its business goals and its commitments to climate change and biodiversity. Reconomy has signed the UN Global Compact, has EcoVadis and CDP certifications, and has promised to meet Science Based Targets.

The Reconomy group’s social value side works through a number of different channels:

• Charitable partnerships — McDonald’s has worked with Reconomy Connect to give money to groups like the YMCA as part of the client’s commitment to cutting down on waste and investing in the community.
• Think Circular Award — every year, the group gives out this award to honour new ideas in circular economy practice among its customers and partners.
• #CloseTheGap — a public-facing project aimed at closing the circularity gap and getting businesses and consumers involved in the shift from linear to circular models.
• Employee social events and ESG involvement are internal programs that help employees connect with the group’s sustainability goals. These include an annual summer gathering and structured ESG programming.
• Biodiversity and land restoration — the group is a member of the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum and incorporates biodiversity considerations into its operational footprint.

The group’s public-facing communications are increasingly incorporating Reconomy social value reporting. The depth of reconomy social value disclosure is now detailed enough to satisfy the sustainability due diligence requirements of major procurement teams.

This shows that they are moving away from seeing ESG as a way to meet legal requirements and toward seeing it as a real way to stand out from the competition. This level of reporting is important for procurement teams at big companies that are looking into the sustainability of their supply chains.

The Reconomy proposal is best for businesses that have already decided that following environmental rules is important and are now looking for ways to do it well on a large scale. The group’s full range of services may be too much for a UK business with only one location, one waste stream, and no international business. But for any business that has to deal with multiple locations, multiple countries, EPR obligations in more than one category, and real goals for circularity metrics, it’s hard to find a single provider that can match the Reconomy group’s technology, people, and reach.

The integration is what makes Reconomy UK different from other companies that only focus on compliance. Waste management, EPR compliance, and returns handling are all connected, measured, and visible through the Reconomy portal. The three-loop model is meant to provide that integration, and it’s clear that businesses that need it will find it useful.