Abitibi and End Users look to expand collection work

The growth plan comes from Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe, which provides a kerbside collection service for 2.2 million properties and works with more than 120 local authorities.

Consortium success: Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe's managing director Ron Humphreys in Stoke with (right) Jacqui Owens, regional manager for the south, and (left) Rachel Chadwick, scheme supervisor

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, managing director Ron Humphreys said: “We are currently at the exploratory stage in terms of growth. We have expanded quickly over the last few years and are now targeting growth working with our End User Consortium partners.”

Mr Humphreys said he had not ruled out the business expanding into new areas and pointed out that it is already running schemes which include green waste and plastics.

Sorting
A long-time supporter of collecting used newspapers separately at the kerbside, Mr Humphreys said that the company was also assessing the possibility of operating a materials recycling facility although it still considered kerbside sorting had many advantages.

Abitibi and the End Users – Berryman for glass, Corus for steel cans, Novelis for aluminium cans and the Salvation Army Trading division for textiles – work together to guarantee local authorities secure and sustainable markets for their recyclate, with Abitibi taking the lead.

The current work has built on former Abitibi’s predecessor Cheshire Recycling which collected newspapers as a clean feedstock for the company’s newsprint mill at Ellesmere Port.

Recent investment at the Burslem transfer station in Stoke has included a can baler

Stoke
Typical of the local authority work carried out today by the End User Consortium is a contract to collect recyclables for Stoke city council. Recent investment at the Burslem transfer station has included the installation of a can sorting plant.

Mr Humphreys said: “Stoke is a good example of our approach and we are seeing good volumes of materials collected including high volumes of textiles. As with our service provision nationally, collection and transfer operations are subcontracted. Here in Stoke collection vehicles are operated by Ward Recycling with the transfer station run by VAS Logistics.”

Another important growth area for the company is press room paper waste, where it is market leader, collecting thousands of tonnes every week from leading printers. In the past two years alone Abitibi has invested 3million in this area.