Search for UK’s best recycling and waste facilities

Those involved in recycling or sustainable waste management initiatives in all the sectors are being encouraged to send in their entries for the awards by Tuesday September 4.

The awards include nine categories ranging from the commercial sector to the public sector, while for the first time in the awards, community group achievements will be recognised.

The winners of this year's awards will be announced at a luncheon ceremony at London's Savoy Hotel on October 17, with all nominees invited to the occasion.

Two of the categories focus on rewarding efforts in developing smart, effective infrastructure – an award for Innovation in Design of a Waste Management Facility, and also an award for the best civic amenity site of the year.

Design

With aesthetics proving an important factor in new recycling or waste facilities gaining acceptability with local neighbours – and regulation requiring ever tightening controls on environmental impact – design has never been a more important factor in new infrastructure.

The Innovation in Design of a Waste Management Facility category has, in the past recognised the work of waste management companies to minimise the impact of new recovery plants on the local environment. The striking architecture of facilities run by Veolia Environmental Services in Portsmouth and SITA UK on the Isle of Man gained the award in 2006 and 2004 respectively.

It could be another recycling facility that takes the award this year, as did the Battlefield Enterprise Park site near Shrewsbury in 2005. This is a site that includes a household recycling centre, materials recycling facility and waste transfer station, and caught the judges' eye partly because of its clever use of rainwater and geothermal heating to reduce its environmental impact.

CA site

With 2.3 million tonnes of household waste being recycled at civic amenity sites – comprising around a third of all household recycling – they are still vital in pushing up national and regional recycling rates in this country, despite the rising popularity of kerbside collection schemes.

Some of the top civic amenity sites – or household waste recycling centres as they are often termed – are now achieving in the region of 70 or even 80% recycling rates for the material being taken in. They are being developed with ease of use in mind, with clear signage, well-maintained collection containers for a wide range of materials and smart schemes to avoid traffic congestion.

In past years, the CA Site of the Year prize has gone to Somerset county council's Highbridge site, operated by Wyvern Waste, which was achieving an 80% recycling rate in 2005, while the Wingmoor Farm Household Recycling Centre in Gloucestershire, operated by Cory Environmental, took the award the year before with an impressive recycling rate of 77%.

But it isn't just high recycling rates that could decide a winner this year. Last year saw Leicestershire's split-level site at Loughborough taking the title, where the county council turned around a difficult site with an impressive increase in recycling rates as a result. A recycling rate of just 11.9% in 2003/04 rocketed to 43.7% two years later thanks to the re-development efforts.

Entries

If your recycling or waste management facility should be in the running for this year's Awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management – or any other initiative or project in one of the nine different categories – there is still time to enter.

Take a look at the Awards website to decide which category best suits your project, and while on the website download an entry form.

For further information, or for help in entering the awards, please call Vicki McKellar on 020 7633 4500 or email vicki.m@letsrecycle.com.