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Middlesbrough recycling firm pursues lean future with £490k investment

Ward Recycling has moved to secure its future as both an efficient and lean business by investing £490k in new machinery for its recycling facility and glass beneficiation plant.

The Middlesbrough-based company, which manufactures recycled glass media, has purchased a new £385k baler, which bales sorted finished products and has increased the payloads of vehicles leaving the site.

The increased performance has allowed faster throughput resulting in more tonnage being sorted and has reduced energy consumption.

In addition to the baler, the glass media side of the business, which produces a product free from sharps, commonly used in filtering water for human consumption, has installed a trommel and a series of new conveyors worth £105k to screen out any unwanted material and improve the purity of its final product.

As well as being used to filter drinking water, the glass media is also used as a high-quality replacement for silica sand used in swimming pool filtration systems and are frequently utilised as an environmentally friendly shot blasting abrasive.

Gareth Godwin, Manager at Ward Recycling, said: “We receive and process huge volumes of glass from commercial and household collections, which requires a lean operating model and efficient processes throughout our business.

“This is the latest in a series of investments that have improved efficiency and as a result increased our capacity and ability to easily manage any cyclical influxes in demand.

“As well as delivering efficiency gains, the new screening system will enable us to recover more viable glass from our recycling inputs – reducing wastage and ensuring as much material as possible is processed for reuse.”