News round

Landfill soil used to reopen park; Polyplastics tackles 'hard to recycle' materials; Reuse found for oyster shells at festival; Yorwaste takes cycle campaign to schools

Liverpool’s 24 acre recreational area Southern Grasslands has reopened having been regenerated from the recycled soil of a former landfill site.

The city council said over the past two years more than 400,000 cubic metres of soil and waste has been removed from the Festival Gardens development zone, which was used as a public waste deposit facility for some 30 years.

More than 95% of this material has been recycled including 100,000 cubic metres of earth at Southern Grasslands.

Laura Robertson-Collins, cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “Its creation marks the end of a truly monumental two-year long process to excavate the nearby development zone – and is testament to how nature and wildlife can benefit from development when we put our minds to it.”

Press release

Engineering thermoplastics supplier Polyplastics Group has launched an initiative named Duracircle for recycling these materials.

Its first phase is a re-compounding service, which will offer mechanically recycled materials starting by March 2024.

Polyplastics plans to develop and offer recycling technologies for post-consumer recycled materials which it considers even harder to reprocess, using mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and biogenic carbon cycles as needed.

Press release

Organisers of the Stranraer Oyster Festival have pledged to collect the shell of every oyster consumed at the festival. rather than discarding them.

These will be cleaned and then weathered on the edge of Loch Ryan for almost a year before being returned to the floor of the loch to create a habitat for the native oyster bed.

Its sustainability lead Allana Hardie said: “The beauty and ecological importance of Loch Ryan and its wild, native oyster bed is at the very heart of Stranraer Oyster Festival, and we have always been mindful of our responsibility to manage the festival sustainably. This year we want to go even further. We’ve reviewed every area of festival and site management to see where we can reduce our environmental footprint.”

Press release

Yorwaste is to run its Get reCycling campaign throughout this month, allowing people in York and North Yorkshire to take unwanted bikes to drop off points at its 22 household waste recycling centres, The York Press has reported.

Bikes will be accepted in any condition and repaired or used for parts and redistributed by charity Brownlee Foundation, and given to schools for pupils to use.

James Todd, commercial business partner at Yorwaste said: “We’re always looking for ways to evolve our Get reCycling campaign each year, whilst highlighting the importance of reusing items and the role this plays in achieving a more sustainable economy."

The York Press

Austria’s Andritz is to supply Enva Northern Ireland with a plant to recycle fridges in one step at its new site in Toomebridge.

Andritz said the plant would be able to process 70 fridges per hour and is due to open next year.

Barry Phillips, of Enva Northern Ireland, said: “The new Andritz plant, in addition to doubling our current capacity, will also achieve the final shred size in a single step, giving us high-quality output material ready for sale.”

Franz Frühauf, Andritz’s sales director said the heart of the plant was the ADuro QZ shredder, which does not use any cutting tools, but quickly breaks up fridges by using the effects of impact forces.

Press release

Waste management firm MYGroup and care provider Nimbuscare has recycled more than 75,000 empty tablet packets in York since February.

MYGroup has provided 110-litre recycling boxes to 22 GPs and pharmacies in the area. One hundred and seventy kilograms of blister packs having been collected, which are then remanufactured into new material at the groups’ Hull facility.

"MYGroup offers the only circular solution on the market for recycling blister packs and we’re only just getting started in this critical waste space," said director Steve Carrie.

Press release

St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle, Cornwall, has become the first to use a mobile laundry system to make the reuse of personal protective equipment (PPE) simpler.

Rather than send reusable face masks, gowns, and other PPE items to a centralised laundry facility for sterilisation, sustainable medical textiles firm Revolution-Zero has developed a modular solution to reduce carbon costs.

“The realisation of our first ZERO-DECON medical textiles processing unit in Cornwall is a major milestone for us in our drive to displace, through circular economy solutions, single-use from healthcare supplies in the UK and worldwide,” said Revolution-Zero founder Dr Tom Dawson.

The laundry modules – the first of which is based in Truro - can be built in three months and use an advanced IT system to track. Dr Dawson feels the model could be of use in low-income countries where access to disinfection is difficult.

Press release

Plans for a solar farm on the Brogborough landfill site in Lidlington have been refused by councillors who have labelled the scheme ‘overbearing’.

Infinis Solar Developments Limited have applied for a 74,000-panel project on the 168-acre site, which would take 8 months to complete.

Councillors said that, after hosting the largest landfill in Europe until 2008, the site had been restored and the development would harm birdlife and block views.

“The scale of this project is overbearing,” said Brogborough Parish Council. “The effect on local wildlife would be devastating. The birdlife would be totally destroyed, if the development is allowed to proceed.”

Bedford Today

A disused runway at the former Samlesbury Aerodrome is being recycled into new road surfacing materials for Lancashire County Council.

The former airfield is being dug up in preparation for expansion of the Samlesbury Enterprise Zone. Around 17,000 tonnes of this recycled material will be used to resurface nearby roads.

Rupert Swarbrick, cabinet member for highways and transport, said: "We're increasingly taking advantage of developments in the highways industry such as the availability of recycled asphalt to reduce the environmental impact of maintaining our roads. As well as helping to cut our carbon footprint, we no longer have the waste, and cost, of disposing of the old road surface.”

Press release

The JANS Group has bought a majority stake in BlueMAC, which designs and makes material processing systems and waste recycling facilities.

Antrim-based JANS Group’s businesses include electric and commercial vehicles, campervans, modular builds and composite manufacturing.

Michael Rea, chief operating officer of the JANS Group and former general manager of BlueMAC, said: “The acquisition supports the development of our sales presence in the UK, and across the world, especially in Australia. It also allows us to export into new international markets and to continue to build our green agenda in line with our waste to energy plans and in conjunction with the other businesses in the group.”

Press release

A community fund run by Recycle for Greater Manchester and contractor Suez from money raised via the conurbation’s ‘Renew’ shops and online market, had allocated £220,000 for 22 community and voluntary projects among the region’s boroughs.

Two projects will run across Greater Manchester. These are Community Cookery Champions , which deals with food waste, and the Creative Composting Club which promotes composting in schools.

Press release

A Belfast candlemaker who uses upcycled materials to make his goods has won the Young Traders Market regional final, the Belfast Telegraph has reported.

Patrick Frazer’s Candle Bottle Bank manufactures handmade products upcycled from bottles, jars and tins. A national final will be held later in the year at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Belfast Telegraph

A racing team has unveiled a fully functioning car made entirely from discarded electronics.

Formula E team Envision Racing presented the ‘Recover E’ car on the BBC’s One Show in the hope of raising awareness of e-waste.

The replica of the team’s electronic racing vehicles was created by artist Liam Hopkins using materials including chargers, disposable vapes, mobile phones and batteries.

Press release

The National Bed Federation (NBF) is calling on the Government to provide a regulatory framework for nationwide mattress recycling services.

The federation says that 4.75 million mattresses end up in landfill or incinerators each year, equivalent to an area almost four times as big as the City of London, saying that many areas of the country have no mattress recycling facilities.

“Given the ever-growing concern about global warming and increasing demand from consumers for sustainable options, we believe that the Government should move towards implementing a national mattress recycling service as a priority,” said NBF director of special projects Jessica Alexander.

While the number of mattresses sent for recycling between 2014 and 2022 has more than doubled, says the NBF, the real rate of recycling has decreased.

Press release

The East London Waste Authority will implement a booking system to reduce the number of commercial vans misusing waste and recycling centres.

A new system, built by Bookinglab, is designed to stop undeclared waste disposal, reduce DIY waste inputs, stop non-residents using the site, manage traffic flows and improve recycling rates.

“In introducing a booking system for vans and trailers, we anticipate that we will see a reduction in the tipping of undeclared commercial waste, providing a saving to the taxpayer,” said the ELWA’s head of waste and support services, Neil Greenhalgh.

The authority will also use the system to impose fair usage restrictions, including a limit of 12 bookings per household per year and the need to provide a valid postcode before booking.

Press release

Recycling charity recoup has partnered with children’s radio station Fun Kids to launch a series of podcasts designed to teach them about recycling.

The ‘Sort it Out’ series, created with Recoup’s national plastics recycling educational initiatives Pledge2Recycle Plastics, aims to inform children about recycling and sustainability.

"We believe that fostering environmental awareness from an early age is essential for building a sustainable future,” said Carly Dadge, communications and marketing manager at Recoup.

“Collaborating with Fun Kids allows us to reach a wide audience of young learners and instill in them a passion for plastic recycling and protecting our planet."

Press release

Supermarket chain Aldi is to remove ‘use by’ dates from its fresh milk to help reduce food waste and will instead use ‘best before’ dates – except for filtered milk – to prevent milk from being thrown away unnecessarily.

It said WRAP had pointed to nearly 300,000 tonnes of milk wasted by UK households each year, half of which had stated this was because it had not been consumed by the 'use by’ date.

Liz Fox, sustainability director at Aldi UK, said: “We hope shoppers embrace this change and look, smell, and taste their milk to see if it’s still fine to use, so together we can reduce the effect food waste has on the environment.”

Press release

Low value plastic waste collected by Exeter City Council is being turned into benches by manufacturer Circular 11, which council waste collection and recycling staff have been testing during their break times.

Once Exeter has collected and granulated the plastic, Circular 11 manufactures the benches in their facility on the south coast.

Circular 11’s Ben Gibbons said: “All of the plastics in these benches have been permanently saved from landfill and incineration. Even when the benches reach the end of their life, we'll recycle them back into more products. They demonstrate that there can be a sustainable future for plastics when we work together to improve the effectiveness of recycling systems.”

Press release

Regulator Natural Resources Wales has granted Powys County Council a permit for a new facility for the bulking of non-hazardous material from kerbside collections at Abermule Business Park, after a previous application was refused earlier this year.

The site will be able to process up to 22,500 tonnes a year of non-hazardous waste, with a maximum of 425 tonnes to be kept on site at any one time.

Application notice

The Royal Liverpool Golf Club averted the sale and use of tens of thousands of single-use plastic bottles during the recent Open event by using drinking water stations provided by Sweden’s Bluewater.

Organisers said this avoided the use of 87,966 single-use 500 ml plastic bottles, which would have ended up in landfills or oceans .

Bluewater provided on-site water purifiers and dispensers, where people could refill their reusable water bottles throughout the venue.

Press release