In June 2019, Ascot Racecourse set itself the ambitious target of washing over 500,000 Champagne, beer and other kinds of plastic glasses during Royal Ascot.
Working with the game-changing operation, “Re-Cup,” some 350 dedicated staff helped to collect, wash and re-use 638,702 plastic glasses over the five-day Royal Meeting.
And the race to reduce plastic waste at the racecourse has continued beyond the Royal Meeting, with 1,000s more glasses washed over a busy summer of racing at Ascot.
Racegoers at all meetings are asked to place their used glasses into one of over 200 dedicated bins around site or return them to the bars. Each glass is subsequently washed and returned to the racecourse, often within 24 hours during multi-day meetings.
Ascot’s Official Water, Harrogate Spring Water, is bottled in PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic. All PET bottles collected at Ascot are recycled and used to produce new bottles in a closed loop recycling system.
Harrogate Water pioneered the “Incredible Shrinking Bottle Campaign” in partnership with Keep Britain Tidy which encourages customers to ‘Twist It, Cap It, Recycle It,’ to make their bottle extremely compact and increase recycling efficiency. Dedicated PET plastic bottle bins are clearly marked on site.
