Atalian Servest is on a mission to remove all single-use plastic disposables from its operation across central government estate contracts in the United Kingdom, and is rolling out a three-phase approach spearheaded by Angel Hill Food Co - the group's specialist business and industry (B&I) catering division.

The three-phase plan will span two years, with the first phase seeing Angel Hill switching plastic cutlery and takeaway containers to fully compostable alternatives, of which one of the pilot clients currently uses over 194,000 each year. Phases two and three involve the business replacing bottled drinks with canned alternatives, changing the way it serves condiments and looking at a scheme to reduce single-use coffee cups. This will see over 300,000 single-use plastics removed.

In addition, the largest catering contract for Atalian Servest, a government department, has already seen all single use plastics removed and the adoption of their fully compostable packaging in its ‘brand in a box’ range.

Henry Watts, MD of catering at Atalian Servest said: “We are proud to launch this initiative and showcase our commitment. I’m so pleased that we have our customers full support on this matter. Our combined efforts to reduce our impact on the environment by reducing the consumption of single use plastics means we are taking a step in the right direction and we will continue to learn, develop and create best practice solutions as we progress with this.”

In October 2018, the European Union approved a new directive that will ban the use of common ocean-polluting plastics in member countries.