United Kingdom – Family-owned UK company Mytum & Selby Recycling (MSR) has achieved 100% materials reuse/recovery in a scheme believed to be the first of its kind in Europe. The firm has excavated a former landfill site in Goole, East Yorkshire, to build a dedicated recycling centre for the area which will provide local authorities and businesses with 225 000 tonnes of capacity.
The company’s Managing Director Steve Carrie explains: ‘At Goole, we have been able to treat, reuse and recycle all the old landfill waste to help with levelling, landscaping and building the new centre.’ MSR has recovered and refined builders’ rubble, stone and tiling to bund the plant and build the recovery facility. All plastics, paper and glass have been reclaimed and reprocessed, and remaining food and organic waste has been treated at its Maltings Organic plant and converted into compost for local farmers.
‘When the centre is up and running next year, we’ll be achieving 90% recycling targets for all the waste we treat from local authorities and local businesses, and will continue to strive for zero landfill to make the site completely sustainable,’ Mr Carrie comments. The company will be looking into hosting other technologies on the 17-acre site to create fuels and energy from the final residual waste after the facility’s bulk segregation process.
The company has also seen the first batch of compost emerge from the production line at Maltings Organic, which is based at a former brewery in South Milford. Produced entirely from organic waste materials, the compost is proving popular with local farmers and gardeners, and marks the completion of three years’ research and development to create a completely enclosed waste treatment unit within one of the old brewery’s grain silos.
The centre has two composting units, an ABP shredding system, blending equipment, screening, shredding and waste collection systems, capable of dealing with foods, green waste, ABP materials, liquids, sludges and other organic and biodegradable waste. The in-vessel design enables first-stage sanitisation and ABP compliance, and the complete control of odours, bio-aerosols and other emissions.
Environmental technology specialists at the University of Hull in north-east England provide academic, analytical and scientific support for the plant, which currently has 30 000 tonnes of capacity and treatment permission to develop a further 45 000 tonnes. Maltings Organic has successfully completed a year’s trial on food waste treatment by Leeds City Council and is now working with other local councils to handle their food and organic waste materials. The company has been awarded a contract to deal with a proportion of garden waste from Leeds City Council’s collections.
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