Teesside's Scott Bros. launches 'innovative' recycling scheme

Scott Bros., a Teesside waste haulage and recycling company, has expanded its recycling capabilities to support the DIY gardening and landscaping sectors with a new large-scale composting operation.

Building on its established position in the North East circular economy, the company has further invested in its operations to transform more of the waste it receives into high-quality compost.

Bob Borthwick, Scott Bros.’ commercial manager, said: “We are continually looking at ways to recycle as much of the waste we receive and this new composting operation will be of real benefit to the agricultural and gardening markets.

“The vast spaces available at Norton Bottoms means we can expand this service as part of our circular economy activities at the site, [including] recycling wood and soils as well as our reed beds, which cleans contaminated water from street sweeping operations.

“This is the first stage of our operations in this area as we are exploring ways to develop our composting processes as we begin to source and receive more green waste from new customers across the North East.”

Processed at its site at Norton Bottoms, adjacent to the A19 flyover, the compost is produced using large amounts of green waste collected from Scott Bros.’ commercial customers including a number of local authorities.

It has already generated several hundred tonnes of compost that has been prepared for use on commercial and residential premises.

Collected green waste is shredded, reducing the decomposition time encouraging the movement of microbes, and is then placed in long rows onto an impermeable surface in a process call window composting.

Once cured, the compost is then available to customers through delivery or collection, enabling Scott Bros to support customers in the commercial agriculture, landscaping and DIY markets.

Scott Bros. adopted the new composting method after it received its environmental permit to compost green waste last year.

The procedure is undertaken under the Publicly Available Specification (PAS 100), which provides guidelines for large-scale, licensed composting facilities as part of the permit.