The eQuip scheme helps recycling businesses to lease equipment. Since its inception two years ago the scheme has guaranteed £6 million of recycling equipment.
Wastecom is a relatively new venture, started in late 2004 by Managing Director Chris Simms. Drawing on his 15 years experience in the construction and demolition industry, Chris formulated a clear business plan.
“The strategy was twofold,” he says. “First, find the right location – thereby shortening the traveling distance between the waste producers and the landfill sites. Second, have the right equipment to process the wide variety of wastes being produced.”
The location was duly identified and Wastecom now occupies a 6.5 acre redeveloped site in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Bank of Scotland Corporate arranged the funding for Wastecom’s growth plans. The 28 pieces of Redox equipment backed by the eQuip guarantee form part of a total finance package worth £3.6 million.
Wastecom’s recycling plant opened in November 2005. The recycling facility is capable of sorting, screening, crushing, bulking and baling and boasts a processing capacity in excess of 160,000 metric tons per year.
The new facility serves a range of waste-producing sectors: construction and demolition (C&D), commercial and industrial (C&I) and municipal solid waste (MSW). Customers include jobbing builders, skip companies, utility companies and the local authority. Currently, Wastecom does not run its own transport, so it has developed reciprocal arrangements with several bulk carriers who bring waste to the plant and then deliver secondary and recovered materials to end users. This significantly reduces the company’s transport costs.
Wastecom plans to recycle at least 35,000 metric tons of aggregates per year as well as household waste including glass, plastic, aluminum, steel, paper and cardboard. According to the company, the first six weeks of operation have yielded an initial recycling rate of 92 percent on heavy construction and demolition and 77 percent on commercial and industrial waste.
The Redox plant is the first stage in a three-year plan to extend the site in Kettering. Planning permission has already been granted to develop an additional 40,000 square feet of space and a number of projects currently in the preliminary stages of development will further enhance the holistic approach to waste management adopted by the company.