MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
A North East business, responsible for developing innovative new technology for waste collection that may revolutionise the way household rubbish is recycled in the UK, has been commended at the prestigious Rushlight Awards in London.
Supacycle was recognised in the Waste Management Award for pioneering a novel multi-compartment wheelie bin and collection vehicle, designed to enable cheaper, cleaner and safer recycling collections.
Unlike existing refuse collection, Supacycle 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.
By maintaining the separation of different types of waste, Supacycle also prevents the mixing of recyclable products that currently leads to the extraction of low quality raw materials that cannot be manufactured back into their original form. This 'closed-loop' system saves money and energy while reducing the reliance on already scarce raw materials.
Speaking at the black tie Rushlight Gala Awards Dinner in London, Giles Sergant, director at Gosforth based Supacycle, explains “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 has benefited from support offered by 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, commented “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.”
Renew are a strategic component of the Centre for Process Innovation's (CPI) Low Carbon Energy business.
