Tom Bedford, Managing Director at AWO Recycling on the reasons for the equipment and process investment: “Previously we had two options. Firstly we could reprocess the contaminated oversized product. However, this method would also breakdown the contaminates, which still resulted in a lot of material having to go to landfill. But re-running the process ultimately used more fuel for nominal payback.


“Alternatively we could offload the contaminated product to landfill, but for me landfill is not a sustainable option, financially or environmentally, and I felt we had to do everything possible to process as much material as we could into usable product. This is why we looked at the wind-sifter option as this would enable us to remove contaminates during the final stage of the composting process.”


Tom continues: “Now we are able to cleanse this oversized product, we can re-introduce it at the beginning of our composting process or sell it as a new larger biomass product. This gives us three graded product commodities to sell, including the premium 10mm compost for horticulture and 25mm grade for agriculture, which are both separated earlier in the process using a Komptech Magnum trommel. This has effectively opened up our business up to a biomass commercial waste stream that was previously unobtainable.”


For AWO Recycling the reduction of waste to landfill and fuel costs of reprocessing is already having a positive impact on the bottom line. Thanks to its 25,000 tonne processing licence the business is also able to increase revenue by taking oversize material from other composting plants. This in turn helps them to cope with EU legislation, which is now implementing a quantity and time span allowance for contaminated waste.


Tom explains: “With sites unable to keep hold of their contaminated waste, and financially penalised if they take it to landfill, we are now being paid to take this oversized product off their hands. This results in an increase of revenue at both ends of the process, as after the contaminates have been cleansed, we are able to sell it on as one of our three high quality product groups.”


This extra product stream will also allow AWO Recycling to hit its annual target.

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