During a speech in parliament on 30 November, environment minister Mark Spencer said outbreaks of avian flu in kept and wild bird populations were at an “unprecedented scale”. Mr Spencer emphasised the importance of “good biosecurity” in preventing the spread of bird flu.
In response, Glasgow-based waste management company Enva has pushed easichick’s credentials, saying it is manufactured and transported in a “completely biosecure environment”.
Enva announced yesterday (19 December) that its wood fibre animal bedding manufacturing arm, easibedding, had now manufactured more than 300,000 tonnes of easichick.
“Rigorous” testing of easichick enabled by unique batch numbers and retained samples shows the bedding to have zero counts of bird flu, moulds or salmonella, among other germs, Enva claims.
Tim Price, easibedding’s managing director, said he was “delighted” to have reached the manufacturing milestone and would continue to support the UK’s poultry farmers in the new year.
Mr Price added: “easibedding has been working with UK commercial poultry farmers for over 15 years to develop a consistent quality of bedding that provides biosecurity, flock health and wellbeing and efficiency to help improve yields.”
Bedding
easichick is manufactured from “100% clean recycled wood”, Enva says.
Once spent, the bedding can be spread on farmland and grassland as part of an organic farming system, Enva says, with accreditation from the Organic Farmers and Growers Association. Enva says spent easichick can also be used as a fuel at poultry litter-approved power stations.
Enva is not the only company trying to meet the demand for poultry bedding with a recycled product. In September, Veolia said it hoped to meet a quarter of the UK demand for poultry bedding with the introduction of a product made using waste from the paper industry, ‘Agribed’ (see letsrecycle.com story).
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