In partnership with recycling company MYgroup, British e-commerce company THG has turned its surplus sports nutrition brand products into animal feed.

THG is often left with excessive stock of its Myprotein brand sports supplement product which cannot be resold as it is a food item and is a business cost to remove it as waste. Having partnered with MYgroup the firm was able to adopt circular economy principles by putting the products through an ingredient recovery process, which can then be manufactured into animal feed.

Since the launch of the programme last year, THG reports 156 tonnes of various Myprotein products have been remanufactured into fish food and livestock feed, while 31 tonnes of cardboard have been recycled into new packaging and 28 tonnes of plastic packaging has been turned into children's furniture and buckets.

"I am incredibly proud of the teams at THG who identified a problem surrounding MyProtein products that cannot be resold and otherwise disposed of and came up with an innovative solution to circularity by turning the unused product into fish food." said Mark Jones, chief sustainability officer at THG.

The initiative forms part of THG's 2030 sustainability strategy, which targets sending zero waste to landfill from its own operations by 2030.

"An excellent initiative that delivers tangible positive environmental outcomes as well as a positive economic impact in reducing waste costs for the company and providing a useful raw material for MYgroup," said one Environmental Finance Sustainable Company Awards judge.

"It is an innovative project to make full use of excess stock, converting sports nutrition supplement into feed and collecting/recycling plastic," added a second.