Cash boost for London recyclers

Three recycling businesses have been given almost £300,000 to buy low emission trucks to boost collections in London.


Enhance Capital Fund, which helps organisations working to reduce the capital’s waste, has given £271,040 to First Mile, Smash & Grab and ANY JUNK? to buy Euro IV trucks.

Kate Nelson, senior project manager at London Remade, which promotes green enterprises and helped bring together the Enhance experts, said: “The first phase of capital grants will go a long way to increasing the amount of waste collected for recycling and reducing the amount that gets sent to landfill.

“This will greatly reduce methane gas emissions, which are over 20 times more harmful to the environment than CO2.”

The money is expected to increase annual waste collections by 15,300 tonnes, cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 6,000 tonnes and create 29 jobs.

Geoffrey Galitzine, managing director of Smash & Grab Glass Recycling, said: “The grant is extremely important for the business. It will help accelerate the expansion of our collection service, allowing us to greatly reduce the amount of glass waste the licensed retail sector sends to landfill.”

Enhance gets £4.8 million from the London Development Agency and is made up of recycling, social enterprise and business sector experts.

Bruce Bratley, managing director of First Mile, which collects rubbish and recycling from businesses, said the grant will allow it to launch an electrical goods recycling service.

ANY JUNK?, which has diverted 1,000 tonnes of rubbish from landfill in its first three years, will use the money to buy four new trucks.

Jason Mohr, managing director of ANY JUNK?, says they “will substantially accelerate our development across London, not only reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill but also further increasing our recycling rates.”

For more information about Enhance visit their website http://www.enhancelondon.co.uk.

David Gibbs

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