Member Article

North East recycling technology commended

A North East business responsible for developing new technology for waste collection has been commended at the Rushlight Awards in London.

Supacycle was recognised in the Waste Management Award for creating a novel multi-compartment wheelie bin and collection vehicle, designed to enable cheaper, cleaner and safer recycling collections.

Supacycle’s idea enables separation of paper, metal, plastic and glass waste from household to bin and throughout the collection process, avoiding the need to send recycling to a factory to be manually sorted.

Giles Sergant, director at Gosforth-based Supacycle, said: “The way we collect household recycling in the UK significantly undermines the value of the collected items and their potential to be properly recycled. Supacycle could change the way household waste is recycled in the UK and help prevent ‘down-cycling,’ where low quality materials are sent overseas and reproduced in a different form.

“I’m very pleased that we have been recognised at these awards and hope this achievement will help us push this technology to market faster so that we can see the new bins and collection vehicles on our streets sooner rather than later.”

The project received support from Renew, a regional initiative that assists in delivering commercial energy and environmental technology projects across the North East, who provided advice and funding support for Supacycle to obtain international patents.

John Barton, project director at Renew, said: “It is highly encouraging to see this exciting concept receive national recognition. Our role is to support development of market ready products and their deployment to industry as well as encouraging adoption and implementation of new technologies such as Supacycle from SME’s through to heavy industry.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .