A recycling company has been given the green light by planning chiefs at Cheshire East Council to build a food composting plant which will create eight full time jobs in Crewe.
Hull-based recycling company Biowise has secured a 15-year deal with the council to provide a composting plant to process food and garden waste from Cheshire East’s 370,000 residents.
The plant will make it possible for food across the whole of Cheshire East to be recycled for the first time, from late summer 2019.
The latest figures have revealed that Cheshire East Council is currently recycling over 55 per cent of waste – compared with less than 17 per cent almost a decade ago.
Cllr Don Stockton, Cheshire East Council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “We are delighted that Biowise has come up with an efficient, sustainable and low-cost solution to recycle food waste.
“They have done a great job in successfully satisfying the strict planning application requirements.
“This new composting plant will process food and garden waste together and will help us to further improve our recycling rates, which are currently better than the majority of councils across England.”
He added: “We are determined to further improve these rates so that we are among the very best in the country. We look forward to working with Biowise and building a strong partnership into the future.”
Cheshire East will keep its three bin system, with the waste being collected fortnightly within the garden waste bin, so there will be no need for an extra container.
Once completed next year, the food and garden waste will be processed at the new six-acre composting plant in Crewe.
Biowise will have a licence to manage 75,000 tonnes of food waste across Cheshire East.
Bob Wilkes, operations and development director for Biowise, said: “The development of this advanced composting facility represents the culmination of a two-year process of careful design and negotiation with Cheshire East Council officers and their advisors.
“Through this forward thinking and collaborative process, Cheshire East Council is providing a long-term, environmentally-friendly solution to their residents, utilising state-of the-art technology to produce a fantastic quality assured PAS 100 compost product from mixed garden and food waste.”
