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Hauliers cash in on the green revolution
Page 51
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If hauliers lose some work due to landfill sites filing up or becoming unacceptable. corresponding opportunities await them in the recycling business.
Many hauliers have already taken advantage of this. Earlier this year, for example, Wincanton moved into a new business sector when it opened a stateof-the-art Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling plant near Middlesbrough.
It cost £4.5m to set up, and can process up to 75,000 tonnes of waste each year. To put it another way, that's more than 800,000 washing machines or 67 million kettles.
The future of the plant seems assured as a new Euro
eCYCle pean Directive
coming into force this year will make manufacturers of electrical or electronic equipment responsible for its final disposal.
Such products traditionally went to landfill sites, sent there directly by consumers. But under the new rules users will be able to return them to the retailers from which they were bought.
The retailer will share responsibility with the manufacturer for dispose of the goods in an environmentally acceptable way. But even without the directive, Wincanton believes the recycling plant makes economic sense for those disposing of electrical items.
Wincanton's commercial manager, Simon Hill, says: "With landfill prices rising by £3/tonne each year, many businesses are missing a trick by disposing of their electronic waste in this way."