The Waste & Resources Action Programme has committed to investing more than £670,000 (US$1.323 million) in new wood recycling facilities, which will increase the quantity of post-consumer wood waste diverted from landfill.
Urban Forest Ltd. and McGrath Brothers Ltd. will receive the funding to install new capacity to process recycled wood into value-added products. The funding was provided as part of WRAP’s Capital Support Programme, and encourages the sector to build new wood reprocessing infrastructure targeted at higher value products.
Peter Maddox, WRAP’s Manufacturing Development programme manager, said: "WRAP looked for projects that could create new capacity to process post-consumer wood waste and serve clearly defined end-markets. These two projects are excellent examples that demonstrate that with the right facilities, waste wood can be put to good use and deliver significant returns. Waste material that would have normally gone to landfill is being successfully recycled into usable products that have a high value and are in demand."
McGrath Brothers (Waste Control) Limited, based in Hackney, London was awarded a grant worth £325,000 (US$643,000) through an open competition process. A new wood recycling facility with a total investment of more than £1 million will be installed, which aims to fill a gap previously identified by WRAP for wood recycling in the South East of England. The facility will be able to process more than 21,000 metric tons of waste wood a year.
Urban Forest Ltd., Newry, received a grant of £345,000 from WRAP to expand and upgrade an existing facility. The funding will contribute to the purchase of new equipment with a total value of more than £1.5 million. Air grading, fine screening and cleaning equipment will facilitate the manufacture of more value-added products from waste wood. Two automatic bagging plants will also be installed. At full capacity it will be capable of reprocessing more than 19,000 metric tons of waste wood a year, which will be diverted from landfill.
This WRAP funding supports the increased tonnage of wood that is being recycled. Wood is sourced from local authority waste facilities, wood packaging remnants, off cuts from manufacturing facilities, as well as skip waste, commercial, demolition and construction waste
In order to be eligible for WRAP capital support, projects required clearly defined end-markets, applications or products for the processed wood, where the majority will be used for value-added applications. These included landscaping applications, horticultural products, equestrian bedding and surfacing and animal bedding.