Innovation and quality on show at AfOR Awards

Finalists include a site manager of the UKs highest composting plant, compost promotion in the inner city and food waste collection on an RAF base.

There are six awards and winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony at the AfOR Awards dinner on the evening of March 15. The event follows the annual one day AfOR conference all taking place at the Chesford Grange Hotel, west of Coventry near Kenilworth. Full details are available at: AfOR Conference and Awards or tel: 020 7633 4500.

Marketing

The first award, the Jim Ballance Marketing Award, sponsored by Veolia Water, is for the best marketing work in the sector. And a waste authority and a company have been shortlisted. London Waste is vying for the award with composting firm Vital Earth.

London Wastes entry saw it put forward marketing work for compost produced at its EcoPark in north London. As producers of compost and digestate and located in the capital, the marketing approach had to challenge Londoners perceptions of what could be done with organics. Vital Earth launched an RSPB-endorsed compost to open up the peat-free market. The company said that peat-free composts are a must have for garden retailers but for every converted consumer, there are others who remain peat-based, sometimes through choice, sometimes through ignorance.

Partnership

Three organisations have been shortlisted for the Local Partnership Award, sponsored by Countrystyle Group. They are: Agrivert with Oxfordshire County Council; the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority with Viridor Laing; and Recycle for West Sussex.

The Agrivert/Oxfordshire entry is the further development of a partnership to collect food waste in the county. This has included education work and the extension of services to the commercial sector. In Greater Manchester, the waste authority and Viridor Laing have been involved in a two year Love Food Hate Waste campaign to reduce food waste which attracted interest from large numbers of residents, many of whom said they were actively reducing food waste. Recycle for West Sussex consists of West Sussex county council, Viridor, Horsham district council and Olus. The group have successfully introduced a district wide commingled collection which has enabled the removal of paper and card from the green waste collections service.

Innovation

The Innovation in Organics Recycling category, sponsored by Agrivert, has three finalists: Freeland Horticultures work with oversize material, a Hotrot facility for treating sewage waste grit screenings are competing for the innovation award. Working with Veolia ES at Little Bushywarren, Basingstoke in Hampshire, Freeland Horticulture is producing a peat replacement from oversize organic material. The treatment process transforms the oversize fraction from the composting process into a growing media which is suited as a peat replacement. Hotrots newly developed sewage grit and screenings plant in Kent offers a low energy solution to producing compost from a material which is mainly landfilled at present. TEG Environmental has trialled production of a 10mm product at its Oxton Grange, Nottingham site. Screening equipment was purchased and a respected horticultural company, William Sinclair, agreed to work with TEG to produce a high quality 10mm product.

Site manager

Three site managers are shortlisted for the Viridor-sponsored Site Manager Award: Ged Denny, site manager of TEG Environmentals Todmorden plant; Tim Stamper, site manager of New Earths MBT facility at Avonmouth; and Chris Woolcock, site manager for Agriverts Cassington facility.

Ged Denny manages a site in Todmorden, West Yorkshire,which is understood to be the highest composting facility in the UK. Although difficult to access in the winter, it has remained open thanks to his work and he has also helped fine-tune solutions to reduce some operational air management issues ,with the systems now cited as a benchmark standard for the wider industry. Tim Stamper leads a team of 40 people and has managed the day-to-day running of the Avonmouth site and production of a variety of products. Chris Woolcock quickly assimilated the knowledge needed to operate a successful AD plant and has become a champion of the process ensuring good operations and showing large numbers of visitors around the site.

Food recycling

The Brize Norton RAF base, the retailer Waitrose and the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford are all in contention for the Food Waste Recycling Award, sponsored by Shanks.

Brize Norton was shortlisted for the decision to carry out dedicated food waste collections on site in partnership with West Oxfordshire district council. RAF Brize Norton is the largest Stationin theRAF, with 3,900 personnel and 600 civilians. Waitrose, working with Cawleys, is collecting food waste for AD. The scheme also includes other stores in the collection route after Waitrose identified infilling with food waste from others as beneficial on the transport side. Westfield in Stratford is the largest shopping centre in Europe and with WasteSolve, part of the Cawley Group, the centre has instigated a food waste collection and treatment policy across the site for anaerobic digestion.

Sustainable production

The final award is the Sustainable Production Award, sponsored by TEG Environmental, which has Agrivert and Eco-Composting as the two finalists.

Agriverts entry is for the low carbon ethos involved in the design and construction of the Cassington AD plant and its ongoing operations including a low parasitic load of 8%. In Dorset, Eco is using its own nutrient rich compost derived from food waste to spread on fields for growing of turf. The turf is grown over a 12 month period and the compost then used to replenish the land.

Dinner

Jeremy Jacobs, chair of the judging panel and managing director of AfOR, said: Now, all eyes are on the Awards evening on March 15 where we will recognise some of the best talent and facilities to be found in the organics recycling sector in the UK. This will be a great evening and follow what I am sure will be a very useful and interesting conference during the day. There is so much happening in the sector at present in terms of technological developments, regulation and legislation.

Places at the dinner are still available and I would invite members and others interested in the sector to attend the day and the Awards.

For more information about the March 15 conference and Awards dinner: CLICK HERE