Composting specialist New Earth Solutions is on the brink of an ambitious expansion plan which it hopes will boost its turnover to over £20 million.

The Dorset-based firm - which has developed an "advanced" in-vessel composting system to treat both organic waste and residual household waste at its flagship facility Canford- is preparing to develop five similar plants throughout the UK by 2009.

New Earth plants like its first in Canford can process either source-separated organic wastes or residual material

The company has already started securing land deals on which to build the new plants, and has begun bidding for local authority contracts on which to underpin the facilities. At least one facility will be merchant-sized.

New Earth's plans follows the firm securing £50 million funding last year from the commercial bank Norddeutsche Landesbank (see letsrecycle.com story).

Adrian Jones, finance director at New Earth Solutions, explained that more detailed announcements will be made over the next few weeks.

He said: "We value the support of Nord LB and anticipate that we are well on our way to building up a network of facilities on behalf of local authority and commercial clients.

"This package will help us to deliver significant processing capacity as part of our goal of being one of the few proven solutions offering innovative and competitive packages to our clients. Ultimately, this will enable us to reach our target of recycling up to 2,500,000 tonnes of municipal and commercial waste per annum by 2013," he added.

Technology

At New Earth's 50,000-tonne capacity Canford site, in-vessel technology is used to compost organic waste from Bristol city council, Surrey county council, Eastleigh borough council and supermarket giant Asda.

The facility also acts as a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant to treat residual waste from Bournemouth borough council, by using the same kind of enclosed vessels to break down the waste after recyclables have been extracted.

New Earth expects that as pressure to divert waste from landfill under the landfill directive increases, and landfill tax soars, demand for biological treatment technology will steadily increase.

Mr Jones explained: "Historically there has been landfill diversion requirements from the EU but now landfill tax is increasing significantly and we see our solution by 2009/10 being cost effective due to landfill alone."