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Buxton, Britain's fastest growing mineral water company, is setting out to minimise its carbon footprint by rolling out 26 recycling stations in the heart of one of the most spectacular rambling regions in the UK, the Peak District.

The company has been working in partnership with RECOUP, the UK's leading plastics waste management specialists, to bring this PET project to fruition. Alice Costes, head of sustainability at Nestlé Waters which owns the Buxton brand, says: 'We decided to start just in the town of Buxton itself firstly because this is the home of our water. Also, we think it's best to start the scheme in a small area and do it really well - it makes it easier to control and monitor as well. The next stage would be to extend it to the national park, perhaps providing recycling bins in the car parks.'

Each recycle station is split into three sections; one for general waste, one for cans, and one for plastic bottles. The first three stations, erected in pride of place outside Buxton Opera House, were unveiled by a giant effigy plastic bottle who had to be led about by the hand (owing to his lack of eye-holes) and the High Peak Mayor Graham Oakley, who testified to his respect for the cause admitting with a certain pride that during his time as a geography teacher he was responsible for creating classes of what their beleaguered parents termed 'aggressive and persistent recyclers'.

Costes notes: 'The national average for recycling PET bottles is about 40 per cent and Buxton is fairly typical. With this scheme, we are hoping to see some improvement in these figures.'

Matt Beddoe, head of supply chain and purchasing at Nestlé Waters, explains there were some disappointments during initial proposals for expanding the project. 'If the Buxton recycle stations were a success, we had hoped to roll out bins in railway stations. But we came up against strict restrictions on account of perceived terrorist threats.'

Similarly, potential partnerships with local councils were scuppered by an ironic adversary in the form of government recycling targets. 'The targets are set by weight so because of Buxton's lightweight bottles, the results with our brand would have seemed less impressive,' says Beddoe.

But Derbyshire is still very much within their sights, with Paolo Sangiorgi, managing director of Nestlé Waters UK, insisting: 'Buxton Natural Mineral Water takes its commitment to the environment very seriously and we want to help make recycling easier for people in Buxton, the home of our water. As an ongoing commitment, we will continue to develop recycling facilities in Buxton and the Peak District.'

Buxton Mineral Water has also been busily pursuing a variety of other carbon-cutting initiatives, reducing the amount of plastic used in bottles and the number of miles Buxton products clock up in transport, minimising water wastage during bottling and now the number of bottles going to landfill.

The number of road miles the average Buxton bottle travels has been cut by 20 per cent over the last four years, and is now 125 miles.

Preaching what you practice

A redesign of the 50cl bottles in 2007 reduced the amount of plastic used by 20 per cent, to just 14.8 grams, making Buxton's core stock-keeping unit one of the lightest available in the country. And there is a crusade afoot to reduce it further. This means going for the jugular or, at least, lightening the neck of the preforms (embryonic bottle moulds reminiscent of science-lesson test tubes) that arrive at the factory ready to be turned into Buxton bottles, but this enhancement will require new equipment and fresh investment.

And Buxton's parent company, Nestlé Waters, is not afraid to preach what it practices. Back in 2002, the firm launched the awardwinning Project WET, Water Education for Teachers, helping teachers, parents and children devise creative ways to protect and preserve water.

Buxton's own test of water management would come five years on. It might be expected that hot, dry summers would create the highest peaks in demand for bottled water but the biggest challenge for the capacity of the Peak District plant came surprisingly during the 2007 floods. Between 24 and 31 July, the Nestlé Waters relief effort delivered 253 truckloads of Buxton and 78 truckloads of Vittel bottles to the Flood Relief Centre in Gloucestershire to be distributed to affected areas.

The effort supplied more than five million litres of drinking water to those otherwise in risk of dehydration and water contamination. Stewardship of its historic source is key to Buxton's activities. As Costes reinforces: 'Of course we want Buxton to thrive; it's our home.' And these sustainability initiatives demonstrate that the company's charge of protecting a natural spring 5,000 years in the making certainly isn't water under the bridge.

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