OPINION: The Environmental Services Association’s (ESA) latest vision for a circular UK economy by 2040 offers a compelling blueprint. Their five-pronged strategy outlines a clear and ambitious path: reducing waste, increasing recyclability, boosting participation, improving processing and preventing waste crime. It’s comprehensive, considered and absolutely necessary.
But if there’s one lesson we’ve learned at Bakers Basco – an organisation built entirely around circular logistics – it’s this: none of it works if the assets designed for reuse never make it back.
At Bakers Basco, (founded in 2006 by five leading UK plant bakers – Allied, Hovis, Warburtons, Frank Roberts & Sons, and Fine Lady) we manage over five million reusable bread baskets and half a million delivery dollies, used by the UK’s largest bakery brands to transport goods across the country. These assets are meant to move through the supply chain again and again, eliminating the need for single-use alternatives and significantly reducing plastic waste. It’s reuse in its most practical form.
But reality on the ground is messier than policy. Our equipment is frequently stolen, illegally recycled, dumped, misused or even sold online. We’ve found our baskets repurposed at festivals, market stalls and in convenience stores, far removed from their intended routes. Every missing asset is not just a loss of infrastructure – it’s a break in the circular chain.
ESA is right to push for a future where landfill is obsolete, and reuse is the norm. But to get there, we need to close the enforcement gap that allows circular assets to be siphoned out of the loop. The fifth pillar of ESA’s framework “Preventing waste leaving the closed loop” is where the rubber really meets the road. And that’s where more support is urgently needed.
The UK bakers have already invested heavily in smart tracking systems, GPS tagging and durable ID markers to trace their equipment, even after it’s been melted down. We work with Crimestoppers, local councils and enforcement agencies to locate and retrieve stolen assets. But we can’t do it alone. Waste crime costs the UK economy over £1 billion a year and it undermines the entire principle of reuse.
I believe the circular economy conversation needs to evolve beyond recycling targets. Reuse must be made as visible, valuable and protected as recyclability. That means stronger enforcement tools, updated waste carrier regulations and real consequences for illegal processing or theft of reusable assets.
ESA’s proposals for improved infrastructure and digital waste tracking are a huge step in the right direction but I’d urge policymakers to ensure these solutions are accessible to all operators, not just the big players, so that smaller reuse schemes and shared logistics pools can benefit too.
We also welcome the call for clear End-of-Waste standards. For organisations like ours, operating in a sector where reused materials often straddle complex definitions, clarity is key. The ability to lawfully track, recover and return assets depends on shared rules and consistent enforcement.
The government’s £15 billion investment plan and its goal to create 40,000 new circular economy jobs show what’s possible when ambition is backed by action. But let’s not overlook the operational layer. Circularity doesn’t only happen at policy level, it happens in warehouses, on the road and in the everyday flow of goods and materials.
The circular economy isn’t just about design and intent. It’s about what happens in practice, and whether we’re willing to protect the systems we’ve already built.
Let’s make sure that by 2040, reuse isn’t just encouraged. It’s enforced.
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