Cutting landfill waste by 98%

This has been achieved through a close partnership with Rabbit & Enviropower, a waste management organisation based in Worthing, Sussex.

BSW gathers waste from the central heating and building jobs we undertake, including numerous kitchen and bathroom replacements in and around the South-East, and collect it in special refuse skips located at our HQ in Scaynes Hill.

Rabbit & Enviropower then uplifts the skips and transports them to its state-of-the-art sorting facility which includes a £15m biofuel waste incinerator and electricity generating plant, the first of its kind to be privately funded in the UK.

At the facility the waste is processed to remove all recyclable materials: soil and masonry go to the construction and aggregate industries, metals are extracted and sent directly to metal merchants and plastics go to specialist plastic re-processors as does plasterboard, paper and cardboard waste.

The facility then processes the remaining non-recyclable materials by shredding, compressing and burning the resulting ‘bio-mass’ in special boilers to drive turbines and produce green electricity, treating the exhaust gases through a stringent cleaning system approved and regularly monitored by the Environment Agency.

The plant is capable of producing 5 MW of electricity, which transfers directly into the National Grid; sufficient for up to 8,000 dwellings.

Our Chairman, John Belliere, said: “We take our responsibilities to the environment seriously and constantly strive for new ways to make our business more sustainable.

“The Rabbit & Enviropower partnership means we can achieve previously impossible levels of waste-related recycling and energy recovery. Not only old redundant kitchens, bathrooms and heating systems but all packaging materials, timber pallets and office waste is now processed in this way.”