A new £2 million materials recycling facility will be operational on the outskirts of Ellesmere within weeks – with plans in the pipeline to use it to dispose of waste across the county.
Tudor Griffiths Group, based at Wood Lane, near Colemere, has unveiled an environmentally friendly scheme to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by investing in advanced machinery which sorts and segregates waste – ranging from plastic and wood to soils and rubber.
Once materials have been sorted, they become valuable commodities on the worldwide market.
The materials recycling facility has the capacity to process 90,000 tonnes a year and will be fully operational for internal use by the company in September.
It will be powered by electricity produced on site by landfill gas. Since June last year enough electricity has been produced by landfill gas to power 300 homes, with the energy being sold back to the National Grid.
Tony Williams, general manager of waste and recycling at TG Waste, told the Chronicle the facility will be the ‘biggest recycling plant in Shropshire’ and fits in with the company’s environmental targets.
He said: “The idea is to divert waste from landfill. It is an investment of £2 million. There is a scarcity of recycling facilities in the north Shropshire area.
“It is early days and we are talking to a number of customers about opening it up for use by the county in the future.”
He added that the new ‘green’ facility had been designed so that it captures rainwater from the roof for use elsewhere within the company, and features low energy lighting.
Meanwhile, plans are still in the pipeline for a new £6 million dry fermentation digester at the site which would be able to process 40,000 tonnes of food, garden and cardboard waste to produce biogas.
The company is still evaluating the possibility of the plant, which would process the gas to provide 40 per cent electricity and 40 per cent heat.
by Charlotte Hester