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PPE and Workwear Recycling Scheme

Product end-of-life treatment: recycle, repurpose, or recover!

divert from earth

READY TO RECYCLE YOUR WORKWEAR?

Every year, millions of items of workwear and PPE end up in landfill, releasing harmful greenhouse gases like methane as they slowly break down.

At SMI, we believe protecting your workforce should never mean polluting the planet.

Our Divert from Earth scheme helps your business move up the waste hierarchy by focusing on recycling, recovery, and responsible disposal.

From textiles and PPE to helmets, gloves, and boots, our secure recycling boxes provide a simple, cost-effective way to recover materials, cut landfill waste, and lower your environmental impact.

Make the responsible choice, give your workwear a second life.

Read divert from earth

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Step 1

Order your recycling bin.

Step 2

Fill the internal sacks with used workwear and PPE.

Step 3

Bin full? Contact us, and we’ll do the rest.

Good news! It’s easy to keep your old gear out of landfill and give it a new life.

Follow these simple steps:

Order your recycling bin - We’ll deliver it right to your door.
Fill it up - Collect your team's used PPE and workwear, and we’ll arrange collection.
We take care of the rest - We’ll securely recycle your old PPE and workwear through our trusted partner.

Want to showcase your recycling efforts?
SMI can provide you with a certificate to share!

Order your recycling box

WHAT CAN YOU RECYCLE/RECOVER?

Head Protection

Helmets and hard hats play a vital role in keeping teams safe, but once they reach the end of their lifespan, they need to be replaced.

Through our Divert from Earth scheme, we provide a responsible way to process head protection through recycling and recovery routes.

We can take:

What happens next:

Helmets are securely shredded to help prevent branded, expired, damaged, or safety-critical equipment from being reused or resold.

Where possible, materials are separated into plastics, foams, textiles, and mixed materials to maximise recovery. Recoverable materials can then be repurposed into products such as insulation, soundboards, geotextiles, partition materials, and plastic components.

If materials cannot be recycled or repurposed, they are directed to approved recovery streams, including refuse-derived fuel (RDF), where energy is recovered and fed back into the grid.

Hand Protection

Used gloves can build up quickly across busy sites, but they don’t need to end up in landfill.

Gloves we can take:

What happens next?

The exact recovery route depends on the glove material, including nitrile, latex, leather, PU-coated fabrics, and cut resistant composites.

Where practical, materials are separated into textiles, plastics, rubber compounds, and mixed waste streams to support recycling and recovery processes.

Materials that cannot be recycled may be directed to approved energy recovery routes to help reduce landfill waste.

Safety Footwear

From steel toe-caps to composite boots, safety footwear is bulky and tricky to dispose of.

Our scheme ensures safety boot recycling is simple, safe, and environmentally responsible.

What happens next:

Footwear is shredded into smaller fragments to support material separation and recovery.

Where possible, materials including steel toe caps, rubber, foam, leather, and textiles are separated through the recycling process. Metal components can be recycled as scrap metal, while other materials are directed through appropriate recovery routes.

Mixed materials that cannot be economically recycled may be converted into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for energy generation instead of landfill disposal.

Ear Defenders

Hearing protection should be replaced regularly to maintain performance and compliance.

Our initiative makes ear defender recycling easy and compliant, helping support the responsible processing of mixed materials, including plastics, foam, metal, and rubber components.

Wondering when to replace ear defenders? Find out in our blog.

Hi-vis Clothing

Hi-vis garments naturally wear over time and eventually need replacing.

With Divert from Earth, you can recycle hi-vis clothing safely, and branded garments are securely processed to help protect your business and reduce the risk of misuse.

Garments we accept:

What happens next:

Textiles are processed to recover usable fibres for repurposing into secondary materials such as insulation, acoustic products, and industrial applications.

Workwear

Workwear makes up a large proportion of textile waste across many industries, from everyday uniforms to specialist protective clothing.

Our scheme helps businesses recycle workwear efficiently while supporting sustainability and landfill reduction goals.

Workwear we can help you recycle:

What happens next:

Textiles are processed to recover usable fibres for repurposing into secondary materials such as insulation, acoustic products, and industrial applications.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORIES

EQUANS

Disposing of PPE responsibly isn’t just about compliance; it’s about protecting people, brands, and the environment.

One of our customers, Equans, needed a trusted partner to help with the safe disposal of PPE during the EDF contract demobilisation.

"Over the past 12 months, we have been actively involved in the demobilisation of the EDF contract.

"As part of this project, it was essential to ensure that our existing PPE was disposed of responsibly and in alignment with our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines."

"In collaboration with our preferred partner, SMI, we successfully coordinated and managed this initiative…

From initial meetings through to final payment, communication remained strong and consistent. Even when last-minute changes arose, both companies were flexible and responsive - nothing was ever too much to ask.”
Equans, EDF Contract

Biffa

For frontline teams, the right workwear and PPE make all the difference.

For Biffa, it was also about making sure these products were sourced and managed in a more sustainable way.

That is where SMI came in. We not only supply high-quality, consistent workwear and PPE, we also support Biffa through our Divert from Earth recycling scheme, so that old gear is repurposed or recycled.

“Throughout our long-standing relationship, SMI has consistently demonstrated exceptional service, reliability, and quality in their products. Their dedication to sustainability, aligned to our own business demands and meeting our specific requirements in terms of customer service excellence, has further solidified our relationship and made SMI one of our key supplier partners.”
Head of Procurement, Biffa