Durham County Council and HW Martin Waste Ltd recently celebrated a well-deserved win at the Awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management 2020.
The 17th annual awards took place on 9th November and were held virtually this year due to Covid. The awards were chaired by Steve Eminton, editor at Letsrecycle.com. There were a total of 16 award categories, with Durham’s Stainton Grove taking the award for “HWRC or CA Site of the Year.”
HW Martin Waste Ltd has been managing and operating the County’s 12 household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) since 2013. The company’s close partnership with the County has enabled many service improvements to be implemented.
Extensive refurbishment works were undertaken at the Stainton Grove HWRC in early 2019, with HW Martin Waste Ltd an integral part of its design and implementation. The new £3 million HWRC is a much larger facility, built on land adjacent to the old site. The bigger footprint facilitated a range of improvements and additions to the service.
The new Stainton Grove HWRC has been built as a “split level” site, which means the public park and deposit their waste and recyclable materials on the upper level with ease and greater safety, while the containers and lorry movements remain on a separate lower level.
The facility includes a shop where good quality reusable items that have been brought to the HWRC can be bought. Reusing unwanted items is an even more environmentally friendly solution than recycling, so HW Martin Waste Ltd and Durham County Council were pleased to see the shop grow in popularity among visitors to the site.
Another innovation was the provision of an area of the site given over to trade waste inputs. This means that as well as residents, local businesses have a site where they can deposit their waste and recyclable materials. It is a “pay as you throw” system for traders, with the income generated being used to pay for the transport and disposal costs of the extra material it will generate.
Cllr Brian Stephens, the County’s Cabinet member for neighbourhoods and local partnerships, said, “We’re delighted that the fantastic facility at Stainton Grove has been recognised for the innovative ways it helps residents to dispose of their waste.”
The County Council’s Waste Contracts Manager, Jo Blackie, received the award on behalf of the County and was quick to highlight the contribution HW Martin Waste Ltd made to the achievement. Jo commented, “A lot of joint effort went into the project and we’re really grateful to HW Martin’s for providing the expertise and support, free of charge.”
Stainton Grove is one of twelve sites across County Durham, much of which is rural and covers a large area – the county is one of the largest at almost 3,000 square kilometres. The company also manages a semi-permanent HWRC, which provides supplementary services to remote residents on a fortnightly basis.
