News in Brief

Carbon Trust certifies Wastecycles carbon footprint

The Nottingham company reduced its emissions by 27% over the last 3 years, well above the regional average reduction of 7.6%, which places it in the top 5% of performers in the area.

Wastecycle development director Mick Ashall said: Weve achieved this by continuing our long tradition of recycling more of our waste and reducing our overall landfill tonnage. By following the waste hierarchy and recycling all we can, recovering materials for use as fuel and minimising landfill, weve helped reduce our overall carbon impact.

Energos expands with acquisition of BioGen Power

Waste gasification specialist Energos Holdings has acquired renewable energy company BioGen Power. Energos already had a 28% shareholding in the Lancashire-based company which released its shares as part of a reciprocal agreement.

The acquisition means the company now has a joint portfolio of six UK sites, which have a total capacity of 650,000 tonnes-a-year, as well as seven European gasification facilities.

Commenting on the acquisition Nick Dawber, managing director of Energos, said: The combined portfolio of development-ready sites and pipeline of opportunities – now under the control of Energos – provides an exciting opportunity to deliver a UK network of small-scale advanced thermal conversion plants. This offers commercial waste operators a proven, cost effective, environmentally friendly alternative to mass-burn incineration and landfill for their non-recyclable, non-hazardous waste streams.

This is not the first time the companies have worked together; in April 2010 they collaborated to develop a 160,000 tonnes-a-year gasification facility in Bradford (see letsrecycle.com story).

DS Smith Recycling wins homeware store waste contract

DS Smith Recycling has won a contract with Dunelm Mill, a homeware and soft furnishings store, to handle its waste and help the company achieve its zero waste to landfill target.

Dunelm Mill has also set an initial 70% waste reduction target. To reach this target DS Smith will introduce bin rationalisation, weight and stream interrogation and waste alignment. Carbon benefits will also be tracked.

Commenting on the contract Tim Price, DS Smith Recyclings national commercial manager, said: The business has ambitious targets and we are the best placed waste management company to deliver them. We will introduce new technologies to achieve the targets and are undertaking a full waste review of the Dunelm Mill business in order to determine the scale of the job and set benchmarks from the outset so that our improvements are tangible to the business from day one.

SSI Schaefer to provide 52,000 wheeled bins to Waverley

German company SSI Schaefer has won a contract to provide 52,000 wheeled bins for to Waverley borough council to help deliver a new waste and recycling collection service.

The new service, expected to begin in April 2012, will see the council introduce a commingled kerbside collection of dry recyclables which will replace the source-separated collection system currently in place. SSI Schaefer, which provided the council with its wheeled bins for residual waste in 1987, will be providing the bins for commingled recyclables.

The council is also providing a new weekly food waste collection service for all households, for which it has bought 90,000 food caddies from recycling container manufacturer Straight (see letsrecycle.com story).

Innovative packaging to cut food waste

Marks & Spencer has become first UK retailer to use a revolutionary technology to help reduce food waste.

M&S strawberry punnets now contain an itsFresh! strip, which removes the ripening hormone ethylene and helps keep food fresh for longer. Trials carried out in-store found that around 4% less waste was produced as a result of the packaging, equating to around 40,000 less packs in the peak strawberry season. The itsFresh! Strip contains a patented mixture of minerals and clay which absorbs 100 times more ethylene than other known materials.

M&S agronomist Hugh Mowat, said: This new technology is a win-win for our customers not only will their strawberries taste better for longer, but we really hope it will help them to reduce their food waste as they no longer need to worry about eating their strawberries as soon as they buy them.