DRB wins Sustainability at the Yorkshire Business of the Year Awards 2026

D R Baling has been named Sustainability Winner at the Yorkshire Business of the Year Awards 2026, led by TheBusinessDesk.com. The award was announced on Thursday 19 February 2026 at the black-tie awards evening in Leeds.

The Yorkshire Business of the Year Awards celebrate standout businesses across the region, with categories covering every size of business. The process is deliberately rigorous: entrants are visited by members of the judging panel, a shortlist is then created, and finalists are invited to pitch why they should win before winners are revealed at the awards evening in Leeds city centre.

For the 2026 awards, those judging visits took place between 9 September and 27 November 2025. The shortlist was then revealed on 4 December 2025, before the final stage and the winner announcement in February.

For DRB, the recognition reflects the shift we see across recycling operations — and what PlasLOC+ enables. Steel remains one of the largest hidden Scope 3 inputs in waste and recycling, yet the consumables driving that steel use have barely changed for decades. PlasLOC+ challenges that model by taking crude steel out of baling operations at scale while maintaining normal throughput — no new equipment, no retraining, no operational disruption.

The award is a meaningful external validation that this approach stands up to scrutiny — not just in a pitch, but in real operations.

Peter Robinson, Co-owner: “This award is a credit to the team and the work behind the process. PlasLOC+ exists to solve a real operational problem, and we’re proud to see that recognised.” Matthew Robinson, Co-owner: “We focus on measurable change — reducing reliance on steel in the operation while keeping sites running normally. That’s what customers need, and that’s what we’ll keep building.”

In the Sustainability category, the other shortlisted businesses were Adler & Allan, Ambion Heating, AW Hainsworth, FACER. Progressive Printed Packaging, NaughtOne and Techbuyer.