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CWM Environmental awards emergency deals after fire

CWM Environmental has awarded emergency 12-month contracts to Potters Waste Management and Re-Gen Waste after a fire at its materials recycling facility (MRF) in Nantycaws, Carmarthen.

The MRF at CWM Environmental's Nantycaws site was damaged in the fire in 2021 (picture: Carmarthenshire county council)

No-one was injured in the blaze at the local authority-owned company’s site, which took place earlier this year. The fire began on 24 April and was still smouldering two days later (see letsrecycle.com story).

Welsh firm Potters Waste Management will collect dry mixed recycling from a designated point at Carmarthenshire county council’s Nantycaws household waste recycling centre (HWRC), while Newry-based waste management company Re-gen will do the same from similar points at Trostre and Wern Ddu.

The contract was split into three lots. According to a tender document, Potters Waste Management’s Nantycaws deal is worth £806,000, while Re-Gen’s Trostre and Wern Ddu deals are worth just more than £1 million and £611,000 respectively. CWM received four tenders for each of the lots, the tender document says.

CWM could extend the deals by up to two periods of three months, so six months in total.

Recycling targets

Joseph Doherty, managing director of Re-Gen, told letsrecycle.com he was delighted to win the contract, the company’s second in Wales after being awarded a £3 million deal to process dry recyclables for Ceredigion county council in August (see letsrecycle.com story). 

Joseph Doherty is managing director of Re-Gen Waste

“This is our first contract with CWM Environmental and we will be working in close partnership to meet and exceed their recycling targets,” he said.

He added: “Councils are always seeking improvements to the quality of their recycling service and, working with technology-driven materials recovery facilities like Re-Gen in Newry, they choose to work with commingled schemes in order to achieve best value and significantly improve their recycling performance.

“Local authorities are finding that residents prefer commingled schemes which are convenient, household-friendly and reliable.”

Mr Doherty said winning the contract was “another step forward in our exciting growth plans across the UK and Ireland”.

Letsrecycle.com also contacted CWM and Potters Waste Management for comment.

Fire

The “significant” fire began at the ‘blue bag’ MRF just before 3.30pm on 24 April. The recycling centre, food waste facility, garden waste facility, and black bag facility at the site were all unaffected.

An investigation into the fire’s cause concluded in October that it was most likely started by lithium-ion style battery placed in a blue recycling bag (see letsrecycle.com story).

The HWRC at the same site reopened on 5 May, having been closed for nearly two weeks.

Carmarthenshire

Carmarthenshire county council manages waste through CWM Environmental, which is the local authority’s own company.

CWM operate two MRFs at Nantycaws. Its ‘black MRF’ processes waste historically destined for landfill, while its ‘blue MRF’ was purpose-built to recycle waste from blue household recycling bags and commercial collections.

The waste management company also manages four HWRCs at Nantycaws, Trostre, Wern Ddu and Whitland.

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