If you have invested any time or money into tabletop miniatures games, you know they can produce a lot of waste. Plastic sprues, empty paint pots, and even cardboard boxes add up to a lot of clutter. Seeing how wasteful that can be, Games Workshop has announced the Warhammer Recycling Program, one where all of that material doesn't go to waste.
The Warhammer Recycling Programme announcement
According to a Warhammer-Community post, the Warhammer Recycling Program will be trialed at the end of March. The program will be in partnership with the organization TerraCycle and will be in select locations in the UK. The basic idea is that certain gaming shops will have special green bins set up. Players can then deposit any plastic sprues, any empty Citadel Colour paint pots, or even unwanted Warhammer miniatures into these bins. From there, the raw materials will then be recycled and used in other commercial products.
The post also explains why GW started the Warhammer Recycling Program. First, it is the company being environmentally conscious, stating that looking after the planet is everyone's responsibility. They also explain that the plastic used in Citadel paint pots is both high quality and purity, making them valuable elsewhere in the plastic chain, such as the production of garden planters or playground equipment. As for whether they could repurpose the material from old sprues into new Citadel miniatures, GW explained that material from old sprues are of a lower quality than what goes into the models. However, they are looking into potential solutions to this.
It must be noted that the Warhammer Recycling Programme will only be processing the above mentioned materials. Metal and resin miniatures or other miscellaneous plastic items will not be accepted. The full list of UK locations participating in this program include Glascow, London, Cambridge, Oxford, Swansea, and Warhammer World.
Given the recent troubles globally with increasing costs all around, the Warhammer Recycling Programme does mark an attempt at frugality by the company. As for whether or not those efforts will pay off will depend on how the community adopts the program.
