Muc-Off donates to beach clean charity after waste recycling admin error

Cleaning brand Muc-Off has donated over £7,500 to environmental charity Marine Conservation Society, as a result of an administrative error between 2012-16 concerning the recycling of its business waste.

According to Muc-off there was a period between 2012-2016 where the company was not aware that once its turnover reached a certain threshold it had to register for a packaging recovery scheme.

The Environment Agency states that companies with a turnover of £2 million or more, and handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging per year, must ensure a certain percentage is recycled by registering with a packaging scheme, or directly with the Environment Agency.

Since 2016 Muc-Off has been registered with the recovery scheme and the business now meets the scheme’s criteria.

The cleaning brand chose to donate the fine given by the Environment Agency to the marine Conservation Society to compensate for the admin error, in the form of an enforcement undertaking (‘a voluntary offer from the offender to address the cause and effect of their offending’).

The UK-based charity organises regular beach cleans including in the area local to the Muc-Off headquarters in Poole, as well as tackling plastic pollution in our seas.

Alex Trimnell, Muc-Off Managing Director, said: “Managing a fast-growing family business and ensuring we are always up-to-date with ever-changing regulations is a challenge, but one I wholeheartedly commit to, especially when it concerns protecting the playground that our business depends on.

“In relation to the packaging recovery scheme, as soon as we realised we had not registered, we made sure we signed up to it as a priority, as well as offsetting the error by donating to the Marine Conservation Charity.”

Tessa Bowering said on behalf of the Environment Agency: “The Marine Conservation Society is an appropriate recipient of this payment because most of the plastics washed up on beaches comes from packaging. The money will be used to help fund the society’s Beach Clean Project.”

Muc-Off recently made a commitment to deliver numerous environmentally-focused improvements as part of their recently launched Project Green initiative, which includes the elimination of over 30 tonnes of plastic.

The brand has also been driving environmental change over its 25 year history, from the inception of its fully biodegradable bike cleaner in 1994 to the removal of PTFE from use in all products and the introduction of Refill stations in local bike shops across the UK last year.