Further details can be found at the following link:-

http://www.edballs.co.uk/blog/?p=2465

The company, which was formed in 2000 by John Brooksbank, has more than trebled in size in the past 36 months, from 35 employees to 160 through organic growth and strategic acquisitions of other waste and recycling companies – namely Just Recycling Group, Aero Waste Disposal and Leeds Environmental Organisation.  “Through acquiring these companies we have benefited from economies of scale, increased geographical coverage and a client base of industrial and commercial customers,” states Business Development Director, Tim Shapcott, “Acquiring these businesses has brought a number of synergy benefits giving us a critical mass throughout the region.”

AWM head office is in Bradford, but the company has several other locations within West Yorkshire including Shipley and Armley, Leeds (which is currently being redeveloped) plus satellite operations towards York and Selby, as well as landfill and quarrying operations North of Leeds and West of Bradford.  “AWM is what people commonly define as an integrated waste management company in that we provide waste collection and recycling services to industry at large, providing real solutions and certainty to Industry,” says Mr Shapcott, “One side of the business is split into traditional collection activities, so we have a fleet of over 40 collection vehicles ranging from skip trucks to roll offs which provide large container services to Industry.  We also have a mobile compaction service, which deals with lighter industry and also vehicles that cover wheelie bins for the retail and light industry like pubs, shops, small industrial units etc.”

The other side of AWM’s business involves providing waste and recycling services for local authorities and commercial companies ranging from larger national companies to privately owned skip and smaller waste management companies where the waste is delivered to AWM sites throughout the region. With over 60 plant items and 4 key recycling plants currently handling over 320,000 tonnes, waste is initially screened by manual labour and mechanical means before being recycled through the plant.  At the moment around 70 per cent of the material received by AWM is able to be recycled including wood, timber, paper & cardboard and plastics. Inert and recycled aggregates are produced and resold. Chipboard plus MDF together with green waste are composted at our Quarry in Arthington, Leeds. “We process approximately 50,000 tons of these mixed materials at Arthington, which are shredded, anerobically digested and then maturated for a period of time before going on for agricultural use,” states Mr Shapcott, “The material is mixed with other liquids and vegetable matter to produce a compost mulch, which is quite new for this region really.”

AWM also recover mixed metals that are sent to be recycled, cardboard and paper for paper mills within the region and also recovery of plastics, particularly UPVC window frames, which is an area that has gathered momentum over the past 18 months.  “We also recover bricks and hardcore, which is recycled and transported to our aggregate recycling centre where it is crushed down to make various recycled products,” says Mr Shapcott, “We produce a complete range of aggregate like pipe bedding, sands and crusher runs  etc. The final item we recycle we call sub-soils and inert waste because a lot of the waste we take in has a high proportion of inert and fine material.  That gets blended with other soils to produce a sub-soil material or an inert fraction that can be used as ballast and for   Landfill sites to be used as a cover material and for engineering purposes.”

The company estimate that annually they handle in excess of 320,000 tonnes of waste from it’s collection vehicles and customer delivered waste, with around 25 per cent of this figure currently heading to landfill. AWM believe that they can further refine the quality of the recycled products to reduce this figure to less than 5% per cent through a new and significant investment now underway. Waste is already taken to it’s Shipley operation which benefitted from a new £3M state of the art plant designed in the UK but primarily manufactured in Holland. This at that time was the most technologically advanced plant in the region when completed (August 2008) and will be joined by a new “Super MRF” plant in Morley, Leeds in September 2011.

From experience gained at Canal Rd, AWM is now investing heavily in its new Leeds “Super MRF” to ensure that it leads the field in recycling technology. The new plant together with land and buildings is subject to a £12.5M investment and will be capable of processing  over 200,000 tonnes of waste having recently been awarded new recycling contracts from Calderdale, Bradford and Leeds City Council. This means that AWM will be responsible for recycling household waste from approx 250,000 houses across the region.

The new plant, will include 2 Rentec pre shredders at a cost of £350k each from Belgium to size materials and will feed the new plant which when added together represents almost 1 kilometre of conveyors and various screening equipment. “One of the problems with waste is that it comes in all different shapes and sizes,” explains Mr Shapcott, “For example you might have pieces of wood that are seven feet long and you can’t get those up a conveyor belt.  By using the shredder we are going to screen everything down from approximately 350mm at the front end down to 12mm at the output end.”

The materials will progress along the plant via a series of conveyors entering several screens and air drum separators, which separate materials according to their specific density.  The plant also includes electromagnets for metal items, eddy current separators for non-ferrous material alongside other pieces of kit that will enable increased quantities of smaller materials otherwise not recycled in the past. Automation provides the ability to sort materials where it would prove uneconomic to sort by hand and incorporates infra red and spectrum photography to separate grades of plastic

The key objective being to reduce the density of landfill waste post recycling from the current 250 plus kilos per cubic metre by 100 kilos per cubic metre.  This weight saving will also enable the company to cope more effectively with the increase in landfill tax and disposal costs that will see a step change again next April.

The new plant will allow AWM to move towards ZERO Waste to landfill through the combination of improved recovery of commodities generally and divert organic matter to compost and preparation of residues currently going to landfill into an “RDF” fuel for thermal purposes such as powering waste to energy plants, power stations and other high energy users both in the UK and overseas. AWM believes that for every 1 tonne of RDF it produces that this is equivalent to approx 850 KW hours of power.

By continuing to invest in new technology in order to improve their output and working to their high standards of customer service, AWM will continue to lead the way in waste management services throughout West and North Yorkshire.

Suitable for: Retail outlets, pubs, clubs and light industrial areas.

Benefits: Secure and easy to position, lockable.

Suitable for: Shops & restaurants.

Benefits: Secure and easy to position, lockable.

Suitable for: Shops and restaurants

Benefits: Light-weight, maneuverable, hygenic with lockable wheels and lids.

Compactors significantly reduce the final volume of your waste providing significant savings, as well as reducing the vehicle movements on your site and the disruption they can cause.

Containers can be collected by our fleet of modern specialised vehicles either according to an agreed schedule, or on demand via our rapid response unit.

To find out if you could benefit from mobile compaction on your site, and book your waste audit contact AWM today.

Last year alone, the AWM family of companies recycled through it’s Material Reclamation Facilities:

• 15,000 tonnes of waste wood and timber.
• 12 tonnes of lead batteries.
• 3,000 tonnes of waste steel and aluminium.
• 2,000 tonnes of waste paper and cardboard.
• Collected, processed and sold over 78,000 tonnes of cover material to be used as soil conditioner.
• Collected, processed and recycled over 10 million bricks.
• In all, AWM diverted a staggering 150,000 tonnes of waste from landfill to recycling, making us the largest independent recycler in the whole of Yorkshire.

It’s quite a list, and one that is growing all the time, as we at AWM use our knowledge and expertise to evaluate and identify new waste and recycling streams.

Could you add to the list? Are you generating waste that could have a recycling value to you? A detailed waste audit by one of our team of experts will help you find out. The audit will look at every aspect of your operation and identify potential areas for reduction, reuse or recycling of your materials.

Contact us today and talk to one of our team.

Your dedicated AWM Account Manager will conduct a thorough waste audit and assess whether you need a small, streamlined solution, or whether you could achieve even greater savings by using multiple containers and segregating your waste at source.

But there’s more to AWM’s waste collection than price. Our thirty years of experience in waste management has developed a collection service that is both prompt and efficient. At AWM, we strive to exceed your expectations. We understand our customer relies on us to get it right, first time, every time.

To find out more about AWM’s waste collection services, talk to one of our experts today.