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Waste & Recycling News
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 Turning waste products into a viable business sounds like a task set by Lord Sugar, but this is actually the challenge undertaken by a group of students from South Eastern Regional College who have recently set up their own recycling company.
Bellisle Recycling has been set up by five carpentry apprentices who secured funding from the British Council for youth in action, which is funded by the European Lottery Fund. To be awarded funding the students took part in the Big Ideas Challenge were they completing a business plan and presented it to a panel of judges. |
World leading premium drinks manufacturer Diageo is among the companies that Invest Northern Ireland’s Industrial Symbiosis Service has helped to implement a ‘zero waste to landfill’ policy.
The policy aims to tackle the problem of increasing waste-related costs. Landfill tax increased to £64 per tonne from 1 April 2012 bringing the total costs of disposing of waste to landfill to around £100 per tonne. |
Thirty businesses across Northern Ireland have bucked the economic trend and collaborated to achieve actual cost savings of £2.2 million and generate additional sales of over £550,000.
These companies are all participants in the Industrial Symbiosis (IS) service, part of Invest Northern Ireland’s portfolio of support for businesses that want to reduce costs while improving their sustainability. |
Renewable Products Ltd has expanded its product range, safeguarded jobs and made significant cost savings with the assistance of Invest Northern Ireland’s Industrial Symbiosis (IS) service.
The company, based near Larne, produces high quality sustainable products, like animal bedding and landscaping products, from waste wood and plastics. As a result of its participation in the IS programme, Renewable Products has invested almost £200,000 in new processing equipment, which has led to cost savings, and additional sales of almost £500,000. |
Carrickfergus-based Luxury Planter Collection has lined up business in Lithuania which will give it a springboard for further growth in Baltic markets.
The company, which is part of the biggest-ever Invest Northern Ireland trade mission to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, from 25th to 30th March, has confirmed a major distribution deal and an agreement with a new business partner in Kaunas to develop an innovative product for its portfolio.
Eighteen companies and the University of Ulster are taking part in the week-long mission, the most recent in a programme of Invest NI trade activities in Baltic and Nordic markets. |
Environment Minister Alex Attwood believes that much more money can be secured for the environment in Northern Ireland.
The Minister was speaking from Brussels today where he became the first Northern Ireland Environment Minister to attend the EU Environment Council meeting.
The Minister wants much better engagement with Europe on environmental issues and feels there are much more opportunities to influence policy and secure more monies by working together with Environment Ministers from the devolved administrations on the European stage. |
Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland has announced a £3,000 funding boost for a Lakeshore Litter Collection scheme in Enniskillen.
The funding, from the Department’s Neighbourhood Renewal Investment Fund, will pay for a lakeshore litter collection and the purchase of litter picking equipment to encourage involvement from local community associations.
It is hoped that the funding will improve the physical appearance of these areas and in turn reduce environmental anti-social behaviour. |
Environment Minister Alex Attwood today has announced the launch of Rethink Waste’s third year of funding revenue grants totalling £250,000 for 2012/13.
The Rethink Waste grants will be available for revenue projects that will reduce waste to landfill through recycling or reuse activity for Community and Voluntary groups, the private sector, Councils and the three Waste Management Groups.
Over the past two years 18 Rethink Waste (Revenue) Fund Grants have been awarded for projects aimed at targeting behavioural change to encourage the reducing, reusing and recycling of waste. |
The entrepreneurial flair of Northern Ireland firms was celebrated at the provincial final of the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards.
Northern Ireland Science Park tenant, Glantek, won the ‘Green Business’ category in the Ulster heats of the Awards and will now go head-to-head with organisations from across Ireland to compete for the prestigious all-Ireland Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards.
Glantek is a unique collaboration of companies working together to develop and promote clean technology products and processes, and bringing together industry leaders into a single supply chain network. |
Environment Minister Alex Attwood announced the launch of Rethink Waste’s third year of funding grants for Councils.
The Rethink Waste grants totalling £1.6million will be available in 2012/13 for capital projects that will reduce waste to landfill through recycling or reuse activity. |
Tyrone company Environmental Marketing Solutions (EMS) Ltd has recently launched the latest in a series of innovative machines that it has developed for the recycling sector with support from Invest Northern Ireland.
Based in Killyman, EMS was set up in 2006 to design and manufacture machines suitable for the recycling and construction industries. Its latest product is a machine that enables recycling bags to be opened without damaging the contents. |
Craigavon company JNJ Crushing & Screening Ltd has helped local construction and demolition companies to achieve cost savings of £1.96 million through providing a mobile crushing and screening service.
The company operates on construction sites where waste is generated. |
After taking part in an Invest Northern Ireland environmental workshop, Portadown company, ReCon Waste Management has diverted almost 2,000 tonnes of contaminated soil from landfill resulting in significant cost savings for the company.
The workshop was part of Invest NI’s support for businesses that want to achieve cost benefits while enhancing their sustainability. It focused on the concept of industrial symbiosis which introduces businesses that have unused or wasted resources, such as materials, heat, transport, production capacity, skills or storage, to other businesses that could use those resources. |
 The Environment Minister today recognised the sterling efforts made to reduce waste here when he presented awards to the Northern Ireland winners of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR).
Alex Attwood presented awards to six organisations in recognition of their innovation, good communication, and the potential for their waste reduction activities to be replicated on a much wider scale, with the ultimate aim of reducing overall waste.
The six winners included "Incredible Edible" from Cloughmills, Cross and Passion College in Ballycastle and Unicycle for their school uniform reuse project. |
 Omagh-based Waste Systems Ltd is leading the way in innovation as the local manufacturing company has been announced as a finalist of the Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards 2012.
Waste Systems Ltd, which designs, manufactures and supplies turnkey systems and standalone machinery for the waste separation and recycling industries, has been shortlisted in the Green-tech Innovation category and will compete with two other companies across the island of Ireland for the prestigious category title.
Now in its third year, the competition aims to recognise and promote the best service, product or operational innovations throughout the island. |
The provisional Northern Ireland Municipal Waste Management Statistics, July - September 2011, published today shows that almost 56% of municipal waste was sent to landfill during the second quarter of the year.
This is an improvement of almost four percentage points compared to the second quarter last year; and represents an overall improvement in excess of 16 percentage points compared to the July - September 2006 rate, when the current Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy was published.
Around a third of the annual allowance of biodegradable municipal waste that can be sent to landfill was used in the first half of the 2011/12 financial year; again improving on the 37% used in the first half of 2010/11. |
Pneutrol Ireland Ltd (PIL), the Antrim-based automation and process control specialists, has recently secured an order worth €180,000 in the Republic of Ireland, following support from Invest Northern Ireland to develop and market a new product.
The company, which is one of the premier concrete control system providers in Europe, secured the contract to automate an electrical and electronic waste recycling plant in Tullamore, Republic of Ireland.
Earlier this year the company launched the Dynamix Batching Control System. |
 Ofcom has progressed plans for the introduction of White Space technology in the UK – the first country in Europe to do so. The technology uses signals that can travel large distances and easily through walls. This makes it suitable for a wide range of new consumer applications that could include rural broadband and Wi-Fi with up to twice the range of today’s technology. |
April 18, 2011 |  |
 Ulster companies stole the show at a major all-island awards event in Dublin on Thursday night, including a Belfast firm lifting the top award.
Andor Technology was named Overall Winner at the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards in the Mansion House, in addition to winning the International Business category.
Londonderry-based BubbleBum was named best Start-Up Business in one of the most hotly-contested categories, which had more than 100 entries. |
March 22, 2011 |  |
The Minister was commenting on the introduction of two new sources of finance which will support young innovative companies to accelerate their development.
Arlene Foster said: "Many of our young innovative companies with high growth potential have historically experienced difficulty securing funding from other sources because, whilst they may potentially offer high rewards, they are viewed as high risk.
"The introduction of new potential funding sources, which will be a combination of public and private sector monies, will fill a gap in the local venture capital market and ensure that early stage companies do not suffer from lack of investment. |
 THE Ulster Business School at the University of Ulster is a key partner in a two year research study funded by the European Union to assist communities to find alternative energy solutions and reduce their dependency on fossil fuels.
Called the SMALLEST project, the scheme is a €3m EU-funded three year initiative designed to stimulate interest among rural communities of the benefits of converting from traditional energy generation to renewable energy generation.
The project was launched today at an event in the ECOS Centre, Ballymena, addressed by renewable energy experts including :
· Nick Lyth, Director of International Resources and Recycling Institute, Edinburgh, who delivered a keynote at the launch event. |
June 16, 2009 |  |
Economic downturns can be a great time to start a creative business – that’s the message from one of Britain’s foremost designers, Wayne Hemingway, who will be speaking at the University of Ulster today.
The co-founder of world famous fashion label Red or Dead will be delivering an illustrated talk at Ulster’s Belfast campus as part of the Ulster Festival of Art and Design.
“We started our business in the severe recession at the beginning of the 80s…. |
March 31, 2009 |  |
The recent focus among Indian IT firms to offshore more work in order to cut cost for clients is impacting some of the smaller European countries that serve as near shore centres.
“The near shore strategy for IT vendors is driven by the requirement of their clients in US and UK. With clients focused on rationalising cost issue there is a push towards offshoring,” said Barry Clarke, Senior Vice President, India- Invest Northern Ireland. |
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