How We Dealt With Thousands of Unused Christmas Menus

Owlerton Experience Take the Eco-Friendly Route

Owlerton Experience Sheffield share news of how they have responsibly dealt with thousands of unused brochures and menus from Christmas 2020. COVID-19 restrictions forced many businesses to stay closed over the Christmas period, usually one of the hospitality industry’s busiest periods. Owlerton Experience – comprising Owlerton Stadium greyhound racing track, The OEC live events and conferencing venue, and Napoleons Casino – were set and ready for Christmas, having ordered thousands of bespoke designed, high-quality print brochures and menus. Sadly, social restrictions forced the materials to remain unused over Christmas.

“We had our Christmas menus and brochures designed and printed for us well in advance and were excited to share this year’s menu with our loyal customers – it was going to be a Christmas dinner to remember!” says Dave Perry, Venue Director at Owlerton Stadium. “We were sad not to be able to open for the festive season and had thousands of printed menus in our store-room going unused.”

In true Owlerton spirit, Dave and his team wanted to make sure the brochures went to good use and searched for ways for the menus and brochures to take on a second life.

“The menus had a lovely design though there wasn’t any space for them to be used for drawing and colouring at a school or nursery. They were also printed with beautiful foil detailing so we really weren’t sure what we could do with all the boxes of print we ordered.” says Rebecca Toner, Conference and Events Sales Manager at The OEC. “After wracking our brains, we decided the only thing to do was to have everything properly recycled so the high-quality paper could at least be reused, they might even be reincarnated as menus again!”

Paper is the most recycled material in the UK and it is estimated that for every tonne of paper recycled:

• 17 trees are saved
• 380 gallons of oil are saved
• 7000 gallons of water are saved
• 3 cubic yards of landfill space are saved

(Source: Business Matters, March 2020).

Experts believe that a third of recyclable waste in the UK ends up in landfill unnecessarily. With so much saved by recycling just one tonne of waste paper, it seems an obvious choice to have more waste paper recycled by every business – think of the difference it could make in Sheffield alone!

“We got in touch with Darren Bland at DJB Recycling who confirmed our brochures and menus were perfectly recyclable and would collect everything. Funnily, this process has been close to our hearts, not just because of the emotion involved in cancelling Christmas at our venues, but because we genuinely do care about our environmental impact,” says Dave Perry.

For any business looking to deal with unused printed materials following months of cancelled or delayed events, think about the positive elements that can be taken from dealing with waste responsibly. There are hundreds of local recycling companies who operate regular and reliable waste collections to help reduce the environmental impact of promotional materials – see how many trees your business could save!