AWJ Woodwaste is a limited company that is wholly-owned by A.W. Jenkinson. The Company operates facilities at Bo’ness near Grangemouth, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Recently AWJ Woodwaste has diversified into green waste reclamation and composting activities at a highly successful new facility at Hespin Wood just north of Carlisle. Hespin Wood is the first of numerous facilities of its type in development.
Located close to large urban centres, the new sites will collect household and commercial waste from Council refuse collection and put them to use as high grade composted material and chipped timber for use in Panel Board Mills and as a moisture regulator in the blending of biomass power generation fuel.
In line with key Government waste, energy and sustainability targets, A.W. Jenkinson has invested heavily in the environmentally responsible processing facilities required for wood waste recovery and recycling.
The business has developed extensive green waste recovery, reprocessing and re-use operations under the auspices of wholly owned subsidiary AWJ Woodwaste Limited at a number of strategically located sites around the UK.
‘Green Waste’ is biodegradable material made up of household and public sector garden waste and grass and hedge clippings, as well as compostable food waste. Surprisingly, around a third of the average household bin is filled with green waste. Once destined for landfill, this valuable commodity is now often collected by Local Authorities through domestic refuse collections or at Civic Amenity sites for large scale recycling.
In the past green waste was dumped in the UK’s expensive, dwindling landfill; decomposing in the anoxic environment to generate methane, one of the most dangerous ‘greenhouse’ gases, as well as producing potentially polluting leachates.
Green waste has long been ‘recycled’ at home by avid gardeners on the compost heap, but as gardens become smaller and free time evermore limited, it has become the responsibility of recycling businesses to return the nutrients it contains to the soil in the form of high quality commercially produced Green Waste Compost, known as GWC.
A.W. Jenkinson is a major player in the reprocessing of green domestic and civic waste. The business has a large scale dedicated facility located at Hespin Wood just outside Carlisle which receives, processes into quality compost and then re markets green waste collected from across the Borders region. Hespin Wood is the first of a planned chain of facilities that will be sited across the UK in close proximity to large urban areas.
In addition to the huge ‘compost heaps’ that can be seen steaming in the cool autumn air as the garden trimmings, potato peelings and cabbage leaves break down into rich black mulch, the plant is also a major reception point for the old furniture and waste wood that has been gathered by Council’s Refuse Departments. This dry, clean timber, which is broken down into chip, is in great demand for the production of chipboard and as a bio fuel for energy generation.
Estimates suggest that as much as 10 million tonnes of wood and wood co products go to waste every year. This staggering volume of sadly under exploited resources is generated by construction, demolition, life expired pallets and packing cases, furniture, panel board and other forms of manufacturing, as well as domestic waste.
Historically, most of this timber has simply been incinerated or dumped in landfill; options that were both extremely wasteful and expensive and that today, are no longer acceptable.
Life expired wood is a valuable, versatile commodity, ideal for the production of chipboard and medium density fibreboard, for chipping and processing into pathway materials, cattle bedding, all weather riding surfaces and mulches and as a major carbon neutral fuel for power generation.
Despite the many applications, all of which are supplied by A.W. Jenkinson, just 20% of timber that is discarded goes on to be recovered and recycled.
AWJ Woodwaste plays a key role in the environmentally responsible reuse of recycled wood fibre, known as RCF. The Group’s numerous sites across the UK consume a large proportion of the UK’s recoverable timber, material that is sorted, processed, packaged and transported to end users ranging from farmers to fibre board manufacturers; gardening product retailers to the new generation of green power stations.
The recycling of materials is an increasingly important element of the national economy. Reuse of wood reduces the UK’s dependence on the volatile international timber market, from which 80% of the nation’s requirements are sourced, cuts use of landfill and cuts carbon emissions when used for heating and power generation.
