Biowise Announces £7m State-of-the-art Composting Facility In Crewe Now Fully Operational

Hull-based Biowise were awarded the £30 million contract in early 2018 to deliver an Organic Waste Treatment Solution for Cheshire East Council who were looking to expand their household organic waste collection service to include food waste.

In December 2018, following receipt of planning permission for the site at Leighton Grange, Biowise’s construction partner Ashcourt initiated the build, which took just over a year to complete. Biowise installed a Gicom IVC system along with associated outdoor composting and screening operations that provide a safe and cost effective method of recycling organic waste to stringent industry standards.

Ralph Kemp, Head of Environment Services at Cheshire East Council, commented: “This new facility from Biowise is an important part of our waste strategy as we seek to increase our recycling towards our 65% target. Based within Cheshire East, the plant allows us to collect, process and recycle locally, helping residents to reduce residual food and garden waste. The plant also produces a superb, high quality compost product whilst providing additional benefits and jobs for the local community.”

Now that all commissioning tests have been completed, the facility has the capacity to process up to 75,000 tonnes per annum of food and garden waste. Over 95% of the waste inputs will be recycled into quality BSI PAS 100 certified compost for use in horticultural, agricultural and landscaping markets. The remaining, small percentage of process outputs will be recycled or sent for energy recovery.

“Our existing IVC facility near Hull has been running since 2015 and has proved to be a sustainable solution for the treatment of organic waste. We are now able to offer this solution for Cheshire East Council,” said James Landau, Managing Director of Biowise. “The new facility is already processing 45,000 tonnes per annum of organic waste brought in from the Cheshire East area and we are actively seeking additional contracts to fill the spare capacity.”

Biowise secured a multi-million pound funding package from Yorkshire Bank to assist with the build of this new facility. The Yorkshire Bank team headed up by Pete Sumners, Corporate and Structured Finance Director, worked closely with Biowise to ensure the funding structure they provided was tailored to meet the needs of the business.

Biowise, (T/A Wastewise) is a leading waste management and recycling company based in Willerby, Hull, with over 50 years experience. The company promotes the use of innovative and sustainable waste treatment methods to help achieve zero waste to landfill.

Following a successful period of growth, the company continues to seek opportunities to broaden its waste-processing infrastructure, which includes materials recycling, biomass and alternative fuel production facilities. Michael Wheatley has recently joined the Operations team to support this growth.