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Leading by example

Actions speak louder than words. That’s why Panda doesn’t just talk about sustainability. We do it. More than just a tick-box exercise, this means putting the environment at the heart of everything we do.

A promise to reuse, repurpose & recycle your waste

At the centre of the circular economy, Panda processes and manages three million tonnes of ‘waste’ a year. Fully committed to our ‘zero-landfill’ mission, we:

  • Recycle and repurpose waste

    Not only do we process all the traditional recyclable items (glass, paper, card, plastic and aluminium) we send electrical goods to be recycled and repurposed too.

  • Compost biodegradable waste

    Processing 45,000 tonnes of material every year, our in-vessel compost facility is Ireland’s largest. The result? 100% sustainable compost that’s perfect for agriculture.

  • Reuse and recover steel and wood

    We collect, sort and screen steel and wood - sending clean, reusable metals for use in construction, and turning timber into pallets and woodchip.

  • 'Wash-and-return' packaging

    We’re investing €50 million over five years to combat plastic waste. As part of this, we’re developing a new 'wash-and-return' facility to help reuse plastic food trays.

Getting creative with renewable energy

Just because we can’t reuse, recycle, or repurpose it, it doesn’t mean we send it to landfill. Instead, we turn non-recyclable items, food waste and biogas into:

  • Refuse derived Fuel (RDF)

    The best way to handle non-recyclable commercial waste, every year we turn 500,000 tonnes of it into fuel. That’s enough to power 100,000 homes and businesses!

  • Renewable energy

    One million tonnes of food is wasted in Ireland every year. Not by Panda. We use anaerobic digestion to turn food waste into a source of renewable energy.

  • Solid recovered Fuel (SRF)

    An alternative to fossil fuels, SRF is perfect for powering industrial facilities. Shredding refuse down to 40mm pieces, we generate 350,000 tonnes of industry-bound fuel a year.

  • Sustainable electricity

    Did you know you can extract methane gas from landfill sites and turn it into electricity? It’s true. Run by our team at Bioverda, in 2020 we generated enough power to run 20,000 Irish homes.

Investing in a sustainable future

We can’t provide green products and services without making sure our systems and processes are equally sustainable. That’s why Panda is committed to creating a circular economy that eliminates waste and reuses its own resources.

Setting the standard for the sector, over the next three years we are commissioning 45 natural gas vehicles to create an all-new ‘green fleet’. We are also investing in ways to increase the amount of waste we can recycle, and find new techniques to recover the resource value from discarded materials. With research and development to be led through our new circular economy business park (Ireland’s first purpose-built, industrial resource recovery centre) it’s all part of our drive to leave a greener footprint for a cleaner future.